Resumption, Movement, and Derivational Economy

TLDR

Lebanese Arabic distinguishes true resumption, where a pronoun or epithet is bound to its antecedent, from apparent resumption, where the relation is achieved by movement. The study investigates how resumption interacts with movement in Lebanese Arabic. The authors explain that only apparent resumption exhibits reconstruction effects, modeling strong pronouns and epithet phrases as appositive modifiers fronted to an A‑position and interpreted as independent clauses, thereby preventing quantifiers from binding pronominal elements across sentential boundaries.

Abstract

This article investigates the interaction between resumption and movement. Lebanese Arabic distinguishes between true resumption, where a pronoun or an epithet phrase is related to an Ā -antecedent via Bind, and apparent resumption, where the pronoun or the epithet phrase is related to its Ā -antecedent via Move. Only apparent resumption displays reconstruction effects for scope and binding. As resumptives, strong pronouns and epithet phrases cannot be related to a quantificational antecedent unless they occur inside islands. We account for this Obviation Requirement as follows: (a) (true) resumption is a last resort device, (b) strong pronouns and epithet phrases in apparent resumption contexts are generated as appositive modifiers of a DP, which is fronted to an Ā -position, and (c) appositive modifiers are interpreted as independent clauses. Obviation is reduced to the inability of quantifiers to bind a pronominal element across sentential boundaries.