Only and bound variables in Czech

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Authors

DOČEKAL Mojmír

Year of publication 2009
Type Article in Proceedings
Conference Studies in Formal Slavic Phonology, Mor- phology, Syntax, Semantics and Information Structure
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Field Linguistics
Keywords bound variables; formal semantics; Czech
Description This paper presents evidence that a possessive anaphor svůj in Czech can be interpreted either as a bound variable (which is unproblematic) or as a covaluated pronoun. The distinction between bound variables and covaluated expressions surfaces in Czech sentences with the focus sensitive particle jen/pouze (which corresponds to the famous only in English), but disappears in the VP ellipsis contexts. This is a bit puzzling, because the VP ellipsis and only are both contexts where the distinction between bound variables and covaluated pronouns can be detected, at least in English.
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