The structure of attitude reports : representing context in grammar

Abstract

This dissertation argues for a view of grammar that encodes certain facts about the discourse context in the narrow syntax. In particular, the recurring claim that there are clause peripheral elements that correspond to a kind of perspectival center is supported by novel evidence that this perspectival element can be overt in certain languages. This is shown using data from attitude reports in Tigrinya (Semitic, Eritrea), which overtly realizes a perspective holder, as well as a diverse collection of other languages, including Ewe and Malayalam. In analyzing this construction, I propose that the certain complementizers have a secondary use as a marker of reported speech. I unify this use of complementizers with their more common clausal subordination use by adopting the proposal in Kratzer (2006), which argues that the modal quantification component of attitude reports is in the complementizer, rather than the attitude predicate, as is commonly assumed. I also analyze two unique properties of these reportative complementizer constructions, indexical shift and logophoricity. In Tigrinya, indexical shift can be accounted for by allowing these reportative complementizers to quantify over contexts, rather than worlds, and by introducing a contextshifting operator. From a morphosyntactic perspective, I find evidence from indexical shift that person features must be assigned throughout the course of the derivation, rather than at the point of lexical insertion. I also find that these constructions create contexts for matrix clause indexical shift in Tigrinya, something that has not previously been observed. Evidence from Ewe and other languages suggests a correlation between logophoric domains and the presence of a complementizer with reportative properties. Based on this distinction, I argue that Condition A-violating reflexives in languages like French and English are not reducible to logophors, based on their distribution, as well as other syntactic properties.