The pronouns they/them/their are readily available with a singular interpretation as bound variables (Balhorn 2004, Bjorkman 2017). Referential interpretations are possible, but subject to pragmatic considerations and changes in progress (Bjorkman 2017, Conrod 2019, Konnelly and Cowper 2020). In a series of experiments, we tested differences between bound and referential singular they in acceptability and incremental processing, asking whether bound they is sensitive to the gender of its antecedent, as referential they is (Doherty and Conklin 2017, Ackerman 2018, Ackerman et al. 2018, Conrod 2019). We found that bound singular they has an advantage over referential singular they in acceptability, even when the antecedent is gendered. In processing, however, bound-variable singular they showed a reading time advantage over referential singular they only with gendered antecedents. We evaluate these results against existing formal linguistic theories of singular they implemented within psycholinguistic models of pronoun processing. We submit that none of the theories fully captures the range of evidence we uncover, in particular the interaction between gender and quantification. We suggest a formal account that does: we propose, using representations from Kratzer (2009) and Sudo (2012), that gender and number features are differentially represented in referential versus binding dependencies. We speculate how this representational difference relates to the processing mechanisms of antecedent retrieval and to the limited processing advantage for bound singular they that we found.

We discuss an empirical study that suggests a finer categorization of pronouns versus lexical noun phrases in terms of their feature valuation. We argue that not all lexical noun phrases have their ϕ-features valued from the lexicon. By investigating Polish politeness markers, we demonstrate that certain noun phrases can have their features (specifically, the person feature) valued in a manner parallel to feature valuation in free pronouns. The proposal thus refines our understanding of the categorial distinction between different types of nominals, and suggests that in addition to known morphological and syntactic variation in the domain of pronouns and lexical noun phrases, there is a more fine-tuned classification of feature valuation types.

I argue that reflexive clitics are not pronominal, but verbal. Cross-linguistically, reflexive clitics can realize either an unaccusative or an unergative Voice head, both of which allow anaphoric interpretations (as suggested by the work of Reinhart and Siloni 2004, 2005). I contrast the anaphoric Voice analysis with two well-known pronominal analyses of reflexive clitics: one, proposed for French, postulating an anaphoric external argument (McGinnis 1998, Sportiche 1998), and another, proposed for Icelandic figure reflexives, postulating an expletive argument in [Spec, pP] (Wood 2014, 2015; Wood and Marantz 2017). Evidence against the external-argument analysis for French includes: a language-internal contrast between unergative and unaccusative anaphoric clauses (Labelle 2008); the absence of a c-command requirement on the licensing of anaphoric Voice; the absence of a lethal ambiguity effect with anaphoric Voice (McGinnis 1998, 2004); and the interpretation of focus constructions with seul ‘only’ (Sportiche 2014, Haiden 2019). Evidence against the Icelandic expletive-argument analysis includes: the observation that not all figure reflexives have a pP, or allow an impersonal passive (Moser 2021); and the difficulty of extending the analysis to other languages with reflexive clitics – in particular, the difficulty of accounting for the widespread observation that anaphoric clitics are restricted to referential dependencies involving the external argument.

Various proposals have been made in the literature, arguing that bound pronouns are, in some sense, deficient. This article tests this hypothesis with Malagasy pronouns, specifically in the context of Zribi-Hertz and Mbolatianavalona's (1999) claim that Malagasy pronouns may be bound only when they are missing the NumP layer of DP. Zribi-Hertz and Mbolatianavalona show further that other syntactic properties are also attached to the lack of NumP. The variety of Malagasy investigated here (Malagasy2), behaves differently from the one described by Zribi-Hertz and Mbolatianavalona (Malagasy1), and these differences lead to two conclusions. First, there are no syntactically deficient pronouns in Malagasy2, yet these syntactically complete pronouns may, in fact, be bound. Second, Zribi-Hertz and Mbolatianavalona are nevertheless correct that the lack of NumP accounts for a cluster of properties, since none of these distinctions between pronouns that they describe are found in Malagasy2. More broadly, we conclude that pronominal binding does not require syntactic deficiency.

This article explores the realization of definiteness in Chuj, an underdocumented Mayan language. I show that Chuj provides support for recent theories that distinguish between weak and strong definite descriptions (e.g., Schwarz 2009, 2013; Arkoh and Matthewson 2013; Hanink 2018; Jenks 2018). A set of morphemes called “noun classifiers” contribute a uniqueness presupposition, composing directly with nominals to form weak definites. To form strong definites, I show that two pieces are required: (i) the noun classifier, which again contributes a uniqueness presupposition, and (ii) extra morphology that contributes an anaphoricity presupposition. Chuj strong definites thus provide explicit evidence for a decompositional account of weak and strong definites, as also advocated in Hanink 2018. I then extend this analysis to third person pronouns, which are realized in Chuj with bare classifiers, and which I propose come in two guises depending on their use. On the one hand, based on previous work (Postal 1966, Cooper 1979, Heim 1990), I argue that classifier pronouns can sometimes be E-type pronouns: weak definite determiners which combine with a covert index-introducing predicate. In such cases, classifier pronouns represent a strong definite description. On the other hand, I argue, based on diagnostics established in Bi and Jenks 2019, that Chuj classifier pronouns sometimes arise as a result of NP ellipsis (Elbourne 2001, 2005). In such cases, classifier pronouns reflect a weak definite description.