A pronominal coreference puzzle

[George A. Broadwell]

Hi all,

Here's a small puzzle from Macuiltianguis Zapotec.  Any thoughts on a
solution would be welcome.

1.  Order and resumptives

The lg. is basically VSO.  Topical subjects are fronted before the verb,
with an obligatory resumptive pronoun following:

Beti  Juan  coneju-a'
killed J.      rabbit-dist

'John killed a rabbit.'

Juan beti-na coneju-a'
J.     killed-3 rabbit-dist

'John (top) killed a rabbit.'

(*Juan beti coneju-a')

Beti-na coneju-a'
killed-3 rabbit-dist

'He killed a rabbit.'

2.  Pronominal coreference.

There are no distinct reflexives:  

Juan beti-na be'cw-ni
J.     killed-3 dog-3

'John/i killed his/i dog' or '...his/j dog.'

3. Order and coreference

However, if you front the subject and drop the resumptive pronoun, then the
following pronoun must be coreferent:

Juan beti be'cw-ni.
J      killed dog-3

'John/i killed his/i (own) dog'
*'John/i killed his/j dog.'

Possibly relevant is that a few quantified subjects (e.g. everyone) can
also appear preverbally.  In this case, the following resumptive is
optional, while it is obligatory for ordinary NP subjects.  So that
antecedents and quantifiers seem to form a class together.

As I said before, if anyone has thoughts about why the data should function
this way, I'd be pleased to hear from them.

George Aaron Broadwell