| The thesis presents a thorough investigation of major aspects of pronominal syntax and interpretation. The main goal of the study is to motivate multiple dimensions of pronominal analysis, including morphosyntactic and structural properties, and to delineate their significance through examination of a variety of major pronominal phenomena with the aim of identifying the relevant parameter(s) at each point. These include binding and interpretive phenomena, movement phenomena, and the relation between pronoun movement and agreement systems.; Chapter 2 presents an analysis of complex anaphoric properties---both syntactic and discourse related---of demonstrative pronouns, a pronominal class which has received little attention in the syntax literature, and it is claimed that the inclusion of a [definiteness] feature, transparent in one Hebrew demonstrative pronoun, subjects d-pronouns and nominals more generally to Principle C of the binding theory. Additional discourse related restrictions on coreference interpretation, observed in the absence of c-command, are captured through the notion of Identity and the system of (co-)indexation developed by Fiengo & May (1994), and d-pronouns are argued to provide strong support for grammatical representation of covaluation in terms of coindexation.; The significance of [person] is the focus of chapter 3, where consideration of the syntax of 'tonic' pronouns doubled by clitics/'rich' inflection in French, Standard Arabic, Welsh, Breton, and Irish, leads to a theory of pronoun movement as Attraction, triggered by a [person] feature associated with a functional head. Chapter 4 extends the analysis of pronominal syntax to Hebrew pronominal Verb-Subject order and a number of new clitic cluster facts are presented. It is argued that post-verbal pronominal subjects are syntactically identical to inflectional material and that verbal syntax is closely related to verb syntax. Only pronouns trigger obligatory V o raising in Hebrew, with implications for the syntax of verb raising and its crosslinguistic link with rich morphology.; The fate of Fo[person] when DP is lexical and incapable of checking [person] is taken up in chapter 5. An examination of pronominal syntax in North Italian dialects and Salish languages, which exhibit systematic expletive/pronominal alternations in pronominal transitive clauses, leads to the postulation of an EPP[person] feature in the CP domain, in addition to CP [force] and [type] features with which [person] in these languages interacts. Assuming CP[person] to be universal, to this position unchecked Fo[person] arguably raises when DP is lexical. |
