De se or not de se: a question of grammar

Abstract

Self-reference said to be ‘de se’ is often explicated by reference to the grammatical first Person (1p), but the nature or necessity of this link are unclear and have not been investigated systematically from a linguistic point of view. We argue that 1p in a referential and unbound position in a matrix clause, or as occurring in an embedded clause with grammatical agreement to the matrix 1p, provides necessary and sufficient grammatical conditions for a speaker to express a thought de se. Insofar as analytical concepts involved in these conditions are not themselves grounded in any known independent semantic or psychological principles, this suggests a potential foundational role of grammar for the phenomenon in question. Convergent evidence for this conclusion comes from two universal generalizations about personal pronouns, the Associative and Suppletive Plural generalizations. These, we argue, follow from the grammar of Person directly, have no semantic explanations, and do not support a semantic account of the de se. As a final piece of evidence, we point out that pathological forms of self-reference in mental disorders centrally involve distinctive anomalies relating to personal pronoun use –thus again suggesting a foundationally important connection between grammar and human-specific aspects of self-referential thought. We conclude that while reference de se has been largely conceptualized as a semantic or psychological phenomenon, it reflects an inherently linguistic form of thought, which is mediated grammatically.