Implementation of Presence and Absence of Blocking Effects: A Categorial Grammar Approach to Chinese and Korean

Implementation of Presence and Absence of Blocking Effects: A Categorial Grammar Approach to Chinese and Korean∗ Yong-hun Lee Dept. of English Lang. & Lit. Chungnam Nat’l Univ. & Hannam Univ. 220 Gung-dong, Daejeon 305-764, Korea ylee@cnu.ac.kr Abstract. Among the languages that allow long-distance reflexives, some languages have blocking effects, whereas others don’t. The goal of this paper is to provide computational algorithms that can handle presence and absence of blocking effects of long-distance reflexives. We will examine the blocking effects in Chinese and Korea and develop computational algorithms for handling blocking effects in those two languages. The algorithms will be developed by incorporating Chierchia’s Binding Theory into Steedman’s Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG). Through the analyses and implementations, this paper illustrates how blocking effects can be implemented computationally. Keywords: long-distance reflexive, blocking effects, Chinese, Korean, CCG 1. Introduction In some languages, long-distance reflexives are allowed in addition to their sentence-bound counterparts. Among the languages that allow long-distance reflexives, some languages have blocking effects, but others don’t. Chinese is one language that has blocking effects and the sentence (1) demonstrates an example of blocking effects (Cole, et al., 2000:14).1 (1) Blocking Effect in Chinese Zhangsani renwei woj zhidao Wangwuk xihauan ziji*i/*j/k Zhangsan think I know Wangwu like self ‘Zhangsan thinks I know Wangwu likes self.’ Here, the reflexive ziji cannot refer to Zhangsan because wo blocks co-reference between ziji and Zhangsan. Let’s compare this sentence with (2). (2) is the Korean counterpart of sentence (1).2 ∗ Copyright 2007 by Yong-hun Lee 1 Cole et al. (2000) included state-of-art introduction to long-distance reflexives, and various approaches to long-distance reflexives are tried by Pica (1987), Manzini & Wexler (1987), Battistella (1989), Katada (1991), Haung & Tang (1991), Cole & Sung (1994), etc. Discussions on Chinese long-distance reflexives are contained in Huang (1982), Hung (1984), Tang (1989), Haung & Tang (1991), among others. 2 We have similar phenomenon in the following sentence (Moon, 1996:15). (i) Johni-un [ nayj-ka cakii/*j-lul ttayli-ess-ta-ko ] syangkakha-n-ta. John.TOP I.NOM self.ACC beat.PAST.DECL.COMP think.PRES.DECL ‘John thinks that I beat him.’ Here, the reflexive caki can refers to John across the pronoun nay. If Korean had blocking effects, this phenomenon would be impossible since the pronoun nay blocks the co-referential relations between caki and John. 275 (2) No Blocking Effect in Korean Chelsooi-nun [ nayj-ka [ Youngheek-ka cakii/*j/k-lul co.aha-n-ta-ko ] Chelsoo.TOP I.NOM Younghee.NOM self.ACC like.PRES.DECL.COMP a(l)-n-ta-ko ] sayngkakha-n-ta. know.PRES.DECL.COMP think.PRES.DECL ‘Chelsoo thinks that I know that Younghee likes him/herself.’ As the co-reference relations in (2) indicate, caki CAN refer to Chelsoo, though nay is located between them. Therefore, we can say that there is no blocking effect in Korean long-distance reflexives. The goal of this paper is to provide computational algorithms that can handle presence and absence of blocking effects. The algorithms will be developed by combining Steedman (1996, 2000)’s Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) and Chierchia’s Binding Theory, which will be called a CCG-like system. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, Categorial Grammar and Chierchia (1988)’s Binding Theory will be …

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