Scott 2021: Two Types of Resumptive Pronouns in Swahili #
@cite{scott-2021}
Two Types of Resumptive Pronouns in Swahili. Linguistic Inquiry 52(4): 812–833.
Core Claims #
Swahili distinguishes two types of resumptive pronouns:
Movement copies (personless: -ye, -o): lower copies of Ā-movement chains, reduced by chain reduction at PF. Diagnosed by parasitic gap constructions — the "true gap" position must license movement, and the "parasitic gap" position shows personless resumptives.
Base-generated bound pronouns (person-matching: -mi, -we, -si, -nyi): not copies — syntactically bound by the head of the RC. Diagnosed by adjunct islands — movement is blocked, so only binding is available, and bound resumptives obligatorily match person.
Analysis: Chain Reduction + MaxElide #
Following @cite{landau-2006} and @cite{van-urk-2018}:
- Movement leaves full copies of the pronoun (including PersP)
- Chain reduction at PF deletes copies except the highest
- Where a phonological requirement (bimoraic Minimality on monosyllabic prepositions) prevents full deletion, MaxElide deletes the largest deletable constituent — PersP
- After PersP deletion, the remaining features [GEN: ANIM, NUM: SG/PL] trigger insertion of the less specific (personless) VI -ye or -o
DP Structure (Tree-Based) #
Pronouns: [DP D [NumP Num [nP n_anim [PersP Pers:x]]]] Lexical DPs: [DP D [NumP Num [nP n/n_anim [√P √]]]]
Modeled using Core.Tree DPCat String with Minimalism-grounded
categories (D, Num, n, Pers).
Vocabulary Insertion (FeatureBundle-Based) #
Uses Minimalism.FeatureBundle and Morphology.DM.VI.vocabularyInsertSimple
from the DM theory module. The Elsewhere Condition is structural: person-
specified rules (specificity 3) beat personless defaults (specificity 2).
Chain reduction removes person features from the bundle, so only the
default matches.
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- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.instBEqDPCat.beq x✝ y✝ = (x✝.ctorIdx == y✝.ctorIdx)
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1SG pronoun mi: [DP D [NumP Num:sg [nP n_anim [PersP 1]]]] @cite{scott-2021}.
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2SG pronoun we: [DP D [NumP Num:sg [nP n_anim [PersP 2]]]]
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Noun class 1 pronoun ye (no person): [DP D [NumP Num:sg [nP n_anim]]] @cite{scott-2021}. This is also the structure AFTER chain reduction deletes PersP from a 1SG/2SG pronoun.
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Plural counterparts.
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Delete the PersP subtree from a pronoun tree. This is what MaxElide does to movement copies: it removes the biggest deletable constituent, which is PersP (nP cannot be deleted because Num and n form a portmanteau — no VI exists for Num alone).
Uses mutual recursion with list helpers so that tree operations reduce definitionally on concrete trees.
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- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.deletePersP (Core.Tree.Tree.node c children) = Core.Tree.Tree.node c (Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.mapDeletePersP✝ children)
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.deletePersP x✝ = x✝
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Deleting PersP from a 1SG pronoun yields a class 1 pronoun.
Deleting PersP from a 2SG pronoun yields the same class 1 pronoun.
Deleting PersP from a 1PL pronoun yields a class 2 pronoun.
Class 1 pronoun has no PersP — deletion is idempotent.
Extract the feature bundle from a pronoun tree's terminals.
Each terminal maps to a FeatureVal:
- Pers "1" → phi (person .first)
- Pers "2" → phi (person .second)
- Num "sg" → phi (number .Sing)
- Num "pl" → phi (number .Plur)
- n "anim" → phi (gender 1) (encoding animacy as gender 1)
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- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.terminalToFeature Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.DPCat.Num "sg" = some (Minimalism.FeatureVal.phi (Minimalism.PhiFeature.number UD.Number.Sing))
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.terminalToFeature Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.DPCat.Num "pl" = some (Minimalism.FeatureVal.phi (Minimalism.PhiFeature.number UD.Number.Plur))
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.terminalToFeature Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.DPCat.n "anim" = some (Minimalism.FeatureVal.phi (Minimalism.PhiFeature.gender 1))
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.terminalToFeature x✝¹ x✝ = none
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Collect all features from a tree's terminals. Uses mutual recursion for definitional reduction.
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- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.extractFeatures (Core.Tree.Tree.node a children) = Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.extractFeaturesList✝ children
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.extractFeatures (Core.Tree.Tree.trace a a_1) = []
- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.extractFeatures (Core.Tree.Tree.bind a a_1 body) = Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.extractFeatures body
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1SG pronoun has features: [number:sg, gender:anim, person:1]. (Order follows depth-first tree traversal.)
After PersP deletion, features are: [number:sg, gender:anim] — no person.
Helper: does a feature bundle contain a person feature?
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Helper: extract the person level if present.
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Helper: is the number singular?
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Helper: does the bundle contain animacy?
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Swahili resumptive VI rules using the DM VocabItem type.
@cite{scott-2021}. Person-specified rules have specificity 3
(checking 3 features); personless defaults have specificity 2.
The Elsewhere Condition in vocabularyInsertSimple picks the most
specific matching rule.
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Insert the correct resumptive exponent for a feature bundle using the DM Elsewhere Condition.
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Whether a pronoun occurrence is a movement copy (part of an Ā-movement chain). Only copies undergo chain reduction.
- bound : PronOrigin
- movementCopy : PronOrigin
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Full pipeline: tree → (optional) MaxElide → feature extraction → VI.
- Bound pronouns: tree is unchanged → full features → person-matching VI
- Movement copies: MaxElide deletes PersP → reduced features → personless VI
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Bound 1SG in adjunct island → person-matching -mi.
Bound 2SG in adjunct island → person-matching -we.
Bound 1PL in adjunct island → person-matching -si.
Movement copy 1SG in parasitic gap → personless -ye.
Movement copy 2SG in parasitic gap → also -ye. Person is irrelevant because chain reduction deletes PersP regardless.
Movement copy 1PL in parasitic gap → personless -o.
Both 1SG and 2SG movement copies produce the same form — chain reduction erases the person distinction.
The complete derivation in one theorem:
- Start with 1SG pronoun tree (with PersP:1)
- MaxElide deletes PersP → tree matches class 1 structure
- Feature extraction yields [number:sg, gender:anim] — no person
- VI inserts -ye (specificity 2 default beats nothing more specific)
- The same tree, unreduced (bound), yields -mi (specificity 3 wins)
Parasitic gap judgments per speaker. Each field encodes whether the combination (true-gap-form ... parasitic-gap-form) is accepted. @cite{scott-2021} Table 4.
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- Phenomena.FillerGap.Studies.Scott2021.instBEqParasiticGapJudgments.beq x✝¹ x✝ = false
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All speakers accept ye...ye (Row 1); no speaker accepts mi...ye (Row 2) or ye...mi (Row 4). The parasitic gap requires the true gap to also be movement, and a movement true gap cannot license a bound parasitic pronoun.
Both island constructions have overt resumptive pronouns — the difference is syntactic (movement vs. binding), not phonological (overt vs. gap). If islands were phonological, both -mi and -ye should be equally acceptable inside islands.
Whether a DP layer can be deleted by MaxElide. Deletable iff the remaining material can be spelled out (a VI exists for the residue).
- PersP: deletable (VI [sg + n_anim] ↔ -ye exists)
- nP: NOT deletable (Num and n portmanteau; no VI for Num alone)
- NumP/DP: never deleted (highest copy is pronounced)
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MaxElide: "Elide the biggest deletable constituent." Trying from biggest (D) to smallest (Pers), PersP is the only deletable layer.
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Chain reduction (PersP deletion) preserves number features.
Chain reduction preserves animacy features.
Chain reduction removes person features.
Bound pronouns retain person features (no PersP deletion).
If a language has both types with morphological distinction, the movement resumptive is featurally a proper subset of the bound resumptive (chain reduction only deletes).
Full pronoun alternation: bound -mi can alternate with full mimi, but movement -ye cannot alternate with yeye. Movement copies exist only to satisfy bimoraic minimality.
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The theory-neutral observation in the Fragment (resumptivePronounIsPersonMatching)
is consistent with the theoretical pipeline in this study (realize).
Person-matching (bound) ↔ Fragment says true; personless (movement) ↔ false.
The movement marker in the Fragment is correctly classified.
"If the copied pronouns match in person, they also match in number" (@cite{scott-2021} §6). This follows from the DP structure: Num dominates PersP, so deleting PersP cannot affect Num. Conversely, if person survives (not deleted), then Num — being structurally higher — necessarily also survived.
The converse does NOT hold: number can be present without person (as in noun class pronouns / movement copies).