Reflexivity in English: an STAG analysis

In this paper, we present an STAG analysis of English reflexives. In the spirit of Ryant and Scheffler (2006) and Kallmeyer and Romero (2007), reflexives are represented as a multi-component set in the syntax, with a degenerate auxiliary tree controlling the φ feature agreement between a reflexive and its antecedent. On the semantics side, the reflexive is a valence-reducing λexpression, identifying two arguments of a single predicate. We then demonstrate that with minimal modifications, our analysis can be extended to capture raising and ECM cases. Finally, we argue that Condition A of Chomsky’s binding theory can be derived as a consequence of our treatment of reflexives.