long-distance anaphors in English?

[Tom Bartlett]

Hi Fritz,
 
This seems to be a case of the "reflexive" used for the speaker (or projected thinker) as in "This is work that has been undertaken by myself" (frowned upon by prescriptivists!).  As such it would take the stress in your example as it is the New information; but it would also sound okay to me undstressed as part of  a list, with the last element of the list stressed as the culmination of the New: 
 
Mary hopes that John will nominate herself, her brother and the man next DOOR.

Don't know if this is relevant.
 
All the best,
 
Tom.

-----funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu wrote: ----- 
To: Funknet <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
From: Frederick J Newmeyer 
Sent by: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu
Date: 12/10/2011 10:46
Subject: [FUNKNET] long-distance anaphors in English?

Hello,

My intuitions tell me that the following sentence would never occur in English discourse, unless the final reflexive is stressed:

*   Mary hopes that John will nominate herself.
OK  Mary hopes that John will nominate HERSELF.

Does anybody know of any corpus-based studies that would uphold (or refute) my intuitions?

Thanks!

--fritz


Frederick J. Newmeyer
Chercheur, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Lyon
Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
Adjunct Professor, U of British Columbia and Simon Fraser U