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Imposters can antecede either third person or non-third person pronominals. For lexical determiner phrases (DPs), the values are inherent and independent of matching the feature values of other DPs. For non-expletive pronominal DPs, however, the values are often determined by agreement with their immediate antecedents or secondary sources. This chapter examines the Principle C phenomena and the superiority of antecedence over coindexing.

An imposter or camouflage determiner phrase having the same ultimate antecedent may replace the grammatical instance of a pronominal without loss of grammaticality. Many pronominals cannot be replaced in this way, however. In general, imposters other than number 1 cannot occur in positions where a reflexive pronoun is expected. This chapter focuses on irreplaceable pronominals and discusses reflexives, inherently reflexive verbs, and resumptive pronouns.

This chapter reviews some crosslinguistic evidence that shows how pronominals agree with imposters. It suggests that languages divide into two groups depending on how pronominal agreement with imposters works. Specifically, it proposes a parameter for pronominal agreement in which an imposter A immediately antecedes a pronominal P, focusing on examples from Mandarin and Indonesian. It then compares Mandarin and Indonesian imposters with ass-camouflage construction determiner phrases.

There are two competing views to explain imposters: the notional view and the syntactic view. According to the notional view, imposters are just regular third person determiner phrases (DPs) as far as their syntax is concerned. The syntactic view considers imposters a class of DPs with a distinctive syntax that accounts for their non-third person denotations. More precisely, imposters have first or second person denotations because their grammatical structure incorporates only first or second person forms. Imposters incorporate exactly the kind of DPs that have such denotations in non-imposter cases, that is, first or second person pronominals.

This chapter shows that gradedness is not a unified phenomenon and that understanding gradedness may explain the division of labour among the systems underlying language and its use. It then categorizes gradedness. It also discusses the issues in binding and co-reference.

This chapter examines a prototypical case of grammatical borrowing from a neighbouring language: the introduction of the reflexive pronoun in the Lower Countries from the late Middle Ages onwards. While Middle Dutch did not make a distinction between local and non-local binding using pronominal (e.g., English ‘him’) and reflexive pronouns (e.g., English ‘himself’), Dutch dialects began using sich ‘himself’ as a reflexive, borrowed from neighbouring German dialects. From a language where binding features did not seem to play a role, Dutch developed into a language where binding features are fully active. The chapter demonstrates that the change has not been triggered by an imposition of the binding features (anaphoric/pronominal) from outside, through prestige of the Eastern grammatical system, but that it was internally triggered. It was triggered by the decline of a marked parameter setting that neutralized the Binding Theory. The chapter shows that rules of Universal Grammar are active in a change that was fuelled by simplification through internal areal convergence in this globalizing and state-building period of the Low Countries. Internal factors created a gap in the system, which attracted the Eastern reflexive forms.

This chapter compares imposters and camouflage determiner phrases (DPs) with epithets (for example, the fool and the idiot). The values of epithets are typically determined by their antecedents. And just like imposters, epithets might well be non-pronominal DPs that take antecedents. In this case, however, antecedents cannot be first or second person imposters. In their incompatibility with imposter antecedents, epithets contrast with third person pronouns that can take imposter antecedents. The chapter discusses the constraint related to the ultimate antecedents of epithets and the Principle C phenomenon.

This chapter examines homogeneity, a property of collections of pronominal occurrences related by antecedence. To illustrate homogeneity, it considers a sentence with two separate pronominals, each with the same imposter as an antecedent (although the two may not have the same immediate antecedent). It shows that there are cases where a plural imposter can antecede either third or first person pronominals, and that pronominal occurrences with the same ultimate antecedent are homogeneous. It also offers a revised version of the homogeneity principle and illustrates how extraction of a constituent containing a pronominal gives rise to grammaticality judgments that differ from those of the unextracted versions. Finally, the chapter considers antecedence versus coindexing of determiner phrases.

This chapter examines φ-feature value assignment to both agreeing pronominals and coordinate nodes in the context of principles that appeal to sources, which can be primary or secondary. The distinction between primary and secondary sources plays an important role in the description of pronominal agreement. The concept of secondary source occupies a central place in the assignment of person values to coordinate nodes. Indeed, key conjunct there cannot be properly defined without an elaborated notion of source that goes beyond primary sources. The chapter provides more substance to the notion of secondary source by specifying three additional types and motivating their recognition. It offers a definition of sources that picks out those other determiner phrases (DPs) that can be secondary sources for P. It also considers an overall account of sources that captures certain types of recursion characteristic of pronominal agreement as well as person assignment to coordinate DPs. In addition, the chapter looks at the subject DPs of predicate nominals and how they can function as secondary sources for pronominal agreement.

Fake indexicals are those forms similar to non-third person pronominals but are interpreted as bound variables and not as referring to the speaker. Some examples fall under the concept of secondary sources. Of particular relevance is the specification that renders the subject of a predicate nominal a source for anything the predicate nominal is a source for. This chapter examines fake indexicals and Principle B, along with indexicality, imposters, and camouflage determiner phrases. It also considers partitives and fake-indexical readings and discusses an English form called number 1, which shares many properties with imposters. The chapter looks at VP-ellipsis before concluding with a discussion of the properties of number 1.

A speaker normally refers to himself or herself using first person singular pronominals such as I, me, my, mine, or myself. To refer to a single addressee, a speaker uses second person singular pronouns such as you, your, yours, or yourself. However, third person nonpronominal determiner phrases (DPs) are sometimes used to refer to the speaker, such as this reporter or yours truly. These DPs are termed “imposters,” the grammatical status of which is the subject of this book. In particular, the book shows that imposters have a more complex syntactic structure than any DPs they may be homophonous with. Imposter expressions such as yours truly denote the speaker, whose forms are distinct from those of ordinary third person DPs. All English imposters determine third person verbal agreement. The book offers examples to illustrate the wide scope of the imposter phenomenon in English.

The notional view implies that imposters are syntactically unexceptional third person determiner phrases (DPs), with only unexpected non-third person meanings or uses. Based on this assumption, the imposter and non-imposter uses of this reporter would have identical syntactic structures. This chapter examines how this conclusion would interact with the existence of the syntactic relation between DPs known as antecedence—the relation holding between the pairs of italicized phrases and commonly represented by coindexing. It considers instances where pronominals with imposter antecedents behave for a third person DP. It also looks at non-third person pronouns, singular imposters, and Principle B effects.

Although imposters have a non-pronominal morphological form, they might also be pronominal if they have antecedents. Specifically, first person imposters have author as their ultimate antecedent, whereas second person imposters have addressee. This chapter argues that recognition of (non-third person) antecedents for imposters can provide an account of both their third person and their non-third person properties. It also claims that first person imposters share the possibility of being antecedents of first person pronominals for the same reason that standard first person pronominals both have author as their ultimate antecedent. After providing an overview of the relations between imposters and precursors, the chapter discusses the antecedence properties of precursors and imposters as well as the so-called reversal of asymmetry.

Chapter 2 investigates the internal structure of Plains Cree verbal complexes, using evidence from the function, ordering, and distribution of morphology within the verbal complexes. Independent and conjunct order verbs share stem‐building and derivational‐level morphology, as well as tense/aspect/modality markers, but have two entirely different sets of inflectional agreement. It is argued that the peripheral agreement in both independent and conjunct verbs is discourse‐linked agreement, rather than theta‐ or grammatical‐function agreement. The conjunct order also has unique prefixes that have clause‐typing properties. The distinction between internal and external syntax of Plains Cree verbal complexes is addressed, and it is shown that the clause‐typing distinction between independent and conjunct order verbs cannot be reduced to a matrix/embedded distinction.