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Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 27:1 (2026) ► pp.1–52

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Vietnamese mình

Attitudes, empathy and the blocking effect

ORCiD logo with link | National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
ORCiD logo with link | National Tsing Hua University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 2 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00250.cho
Abstract
This paper has four goals. (1) We argue that the non-local antecedent of the long-distance reflexive mình is either an attitude holder bearing a de se belief, or an empathy locus in the event/state that the utterance speaker identifies with (Kuno, Susumu & Kaburaki, Etsuko. 1977. Empathy and syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 8(4). 625–672.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 1987. Functional syntax: Anaphora, discourse and empathy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Huang, C.-T. James & Liu, C.-S. Luther. 2001. Logophoricity, attitudes, and ziji at the interface. In Cole, Peter & Hermon, Gabriella & Huang, C.-T. James (eds.), Syntax and semantics vol. 33: Long-distance reflexives, 141–195. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2015. Empathy and Chinese long distance reflexive ziji — Remarks on Giorgi (2006, 2007). Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 331. 307–322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2019b. Locality and logophoricity: A theory of exempt anaphora. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). (2) We show that Huang, C.-T. James & Liu, C.-S. Luther. 2001. Logophoricity, attitudes, and ziji at the interface. In Cole, Peter & Hermon, Gabriella & Huang, C.-T. James (eds.), Syntax and semantics vol. 33: Long-distance reflexives, 141–195. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar analysis based on direct discourse representations fares better than the generalized discourse requirement in Cole, Peter & Hermon, Gabriella & Huang, C.-T. James. 2006. Long-distance binding in Asian languages. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk C. (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol.31, 21–84. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar to characterize the distribution of the blocking effect of mình because first/second-person pronouns induce blocking only when they occur within the relevant direct discourse representation for the intended long-distance interpretation of mình. (3) We propose that the blocking effect of mình can be lifted with proper contextual support, invoking the Topic Empathy Hierarchy (Kuno, Susumu & Kaburaki, Etsuko. 1977. Empathy and syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 8(4). 625–672.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 1987. Functional syntax: Anaphora, discourse and empathy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) to override the Speech-Act Empathy Hierarchy and neutralize the perspective conflicts induced by a first/second-person pronoun. (4) We posit that the dependency between mình and its non-local antecedent is mediated by an implicit logophoric operator/pronoun in . 2019b. Locality and logophoricity: A theory of exempt anaphora. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar two-stage model of binding of long-distance anaphora (Nishigauchi, Taisuke. 2014. Reflexive binding: Awareness and empathy from a syntactic point of view. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 23(2). 157–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2018. Perspective is syntactic: evidence from anaphora. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1). 1–40. (Article 128.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ikawa, Shiori. 2024. Revisiting anaphor complexity in Japanese. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 9(1). 1–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Baker, Mark C. & Ikawa, Shiori. 2024. Control theory and the relationship between logophoric pronouns and logophoric uses of anaphors. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 42(3). 897–954. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We show that the existence of the implicit logophoric operator/pronoun not only captures the hybrid syntactico-pragmatic properties of Vietnamese mình, but also plays a pivotal role in explicating the interpretative possibilities of multiple occurrences of mình.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Blocking effects: A comparison between Vietnamese mình and Chinese ziji
  • 3.Logophoric conditions licensing LD mình
    • 3.1Attitude de se
    • 3.2Attitude holders and empathy foci
  • 4.Deducing the (disruption of) long-distance reading of LD mình
    • 4.1Deriving BE
    • 4.2Lifting BE
    • 4.3The contextual flexibility of the BE of Chinese ziji
    • 4.4An implicit logophoric pronoun
    • 4.5The speaker reading of mình and multiple occurrences of mình
      • 4.5.1The speaker reading of mình and register clash
      • 4.5.2The logophoric operator regulates perspectival conflicts
  • 5.Remarks on Doan (2022) and Doan et al. (2024)
    • 5.1The (un)grammaticality of local binding
    • 5.2The analysis of BE
    • 5.3The speaker reading of mình and the performative hypothesis
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
References (66)
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