French Body-Parts and the Semantics of Binding

This paper discusses the grammar of the French Inalienable Possession Construction (IPC). It is argued that the IPC involves an unexpressed reflexive anaphor. The antecedent of this reflexive anaphor must satisfy a semantic condition which requires consideration of thematic lexical entailments. The model-theoretic nature of this constraint suggests that the range of semantic information relevant to syntactic processes goes beyond the formal configuration of semantic metalanguages. It also shows that the semantic conditions which anaphors can impose on their antecedents are not restricted to thematic ranking or center of perspective restrictions. An analysis of the construction within Head-driven Phrase-Structure Grammar is provided.

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