Open vs. Closed Projection: Distribution of Pronouns in English

Open vs. Closed Projection: Distribution of Pronouns in English

Jeong, Yongkil. 2003. Open vs. Closed Projection: Distribution of Pronouns in English. English Language and Linguistics 16, 225-241. This paper discusses the limited distributions of personal pronouns in English. Pronouns differ from typical noun phrases consisting of a determiner and a noun in terms of their external distributions. Much discussion has been provided on the distinction between heavy DPs and light DPs but not on the difference between pronouns and noun phrases. In this article, we provide a formal analysis of the difference between the two types of DP in English. We use a notion exploited in the metrical phonology, i.e., the notion of open and closed syllables and propose that open projections. which are headed by pronouns, may not move rightward.