Editing Inalienable possession (section)

====Binding hypothesis (Guéron 1983)====
The binding hypothesis reconciles the fact that the possessor appears both as a syntactic and semantic argument of the verb but as a semantic argument of the possessed noun. It assumes that inalienable possession constructions are subject to the following syntactic constraints:<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/>

# There must be an obligatory possessor.
# The possessor must be in the same minimal [[locality (linguistics)#Dldomain|domain]] of the possessee.
# The possessor must [[c-command]] the possessee or its [[trace (linguistics)|trace]] (The c-command must occur in the underlying or [[Transformational grammar#Deep structure and surface structure|surface structures]] of the inalienable possession constructions.

[[File:Binding between possessor and possessee.PNG|thumb|300px|'''Inalienable possession binding:''': the possessor c-commands the possessee in its domain. The possessor and possessee constitute a lexical chain and receive the same theta-roles from the verb.]]
It is assumed that inalienable possession constructions are one form of [[anaphora (linguistics)|anaphoric binding]]: [[control (linguistics)|obligatory control]].<ref name="Blackwell Companion2"/> Thus, the possessor DP originates in the [[specifier (linguistics)|specifier]] of the verb; the fact that the possessor seems to be a semantic argument of the noun arises from the binding relationship between the possessor and the possessee DPs. The parallel between inalienable possession constructions and obligatory control can be seen in the examples below:<ref name=Nakamoto/>

{{interlinear|lang=fr|indent=5|number=(24) a.
|top= '''Inalienable possession'''
|Jean<sub>i</sub> lève  la<sub>i</sub>  main
|Jean  raise the hand
|'Jean raises his hand.'
}}
{{interlinear|lang=fr|indent=5|number={{hidden text|(24)}} b.
|top= '''Obligatory control'''
|Jean<sub>i</sub> veut  {{gcl|PRO}}<sub>i</sub>   partir
|Jean  want (Jean)  {to leave}
|'Jean wants to leave'
|bottom=(Nakamoto 2010: 80 (30a,b))
}}

The hypothesis accounts for differences between French and English, and it may also eliminate the ambiguity created by definite determiners.<ref name="Blackwell Companion2"/> According to the hypothesis, anaphoric binding in inalienable possession constructions relates to the [[theta-role|theta-features]] that a language assigns to its determiners.<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/> The hypothesis predicts that inalienable possession constructions exist in languages that assign variable theta-features to its determiners and that inalienable possession constructions do not exist in languages that lack variable theta-feature assignment.<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/> Therefore, inalienable possession is predicted to exist in [[Romance languages]] and also [[Russian language|Russian]] but not in [[English language|English]] or [[Hebrew]].<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/> In the French sentence ''Il lève les mains'', the determiner ''les'' is assigned theta-features. Thus, it is understood as inalienable possession. However, in the English translation, the determiner ''the'' does not have theta-features since English is considered not to assign theta-features to its determiners. Therefore, ''the'' does not necessarily signify inalienable possession and so ambiguity surfaces.

That hypothesis, however, does not account for verbs allowing [[reflexive pronoun|reflexive]] anaphora (''Jean '''se''''' lave 'Jean washes himself').<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/>  To account for the grammaticality of such verbs, Guéron proposes that in an inalienable construction the '''POSS DP''' (possessor DP) and '''BP DP''' (body part DP) constitute two links of a [[lexical chain]], in addition to their anaphoric relation.<ref name="Blackwell Companion"/> The two links of a lexical chain must obey the same constraints as anaphora, which accounts for the locality restrictions on inalienable construals. Every chain is then associated with one theta-role. Inalienable possession surfaces as ungrammatical when the possessed DP and the possessor DP are assigned two different theta-roles by the verb. That explains why sentence (25b) is ungrammatical. The POSS DP is assigned an [[agent (grammar)|agent]] theta-role, and the BP DP is assigned a [[thematic relation|theme]] theta-role.

{{interlinear|lang=fr|indent=5|number=(25) a.
|Jean lève  la  main
|Jean raise the hand
|'Jean raises his hand.'
}}
{{interlinear|lang=fr|indent=5|number={{hidden text|(25)}} b.
|glossing3=yes|glossing=no abbr
|{Jean lave/gratte/chatouille} {la main.}
|{Jean wash/scratch/tickle}    {the hand}
|AGENT                          THEME
|'Jean washes/scratches/tickles the hand.'
|bottom=(Guéron 2007: 598 (40, 42))
}}