On the role of person in the mapping of syntactic features onto their interpretable counterparts

AbstractPerson features play a role in narrow-syntax processes. However, a person feature is often characterized as [±participant], a characterization that suggests pragmatic or semantic features. Relatedly, person has been the subject of an ongoing debate in the literature: one family of approaches argues that 3rd person is an elsewhere case, while another argues that it is a valued interpretable feature. This article provides a programatic argument that this disagreement has a principled basis. I argue that the representation of the features we identify as person changes between narrow syntax and the syntax-semantics interface. The tests and empirical descriptions are incongruent because they target different modules of the grammar and in turn different grammatical objects. The article thus contributes to our understanding of the division of labour among the modules, with a special focus on the autonomous status of narrow syntax.

On the role of person in the mapping of syntactic features onto their interpretable counterparts Journal Articles