Theory of binding Book

 
TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE
THEORY OF BINDING
Abhilasha Jain
and
B.N. Patnaik
Section V: a
(150) ram ne hi mohan ko larne ke liye uksaya
ram CM EMPH mohan CM fight+Nom CM instigate+PAST
(Only Ram instigated Mohan to fight)
(151) ram ne mohan ko hi larne ke liye uksaya
ram CM mohan CM EMPH fight+Nom CM instigate+PAST
(Ram instigated only Mohan to fight.)
(152) ram tak        se ye sawal nahi hua
ram EMPH CM this question NEG be+PAST
(Even Ram could not solve this question.)
(153) ram se ye sawal tak nahi hua
ram CM this question EMPH NEG be+PAST
(Ram could not solve even this question.)
(154) *hi ram ne mohan ko larne ke liye uksaya
EMPH ram CM mohan CM fight+NOM CM instigate +PAST
(155) *tak ram se ye sawal nahi hua
EMPH ram CM this question NEG be+PAST
In (150), the emphatic hi relates to ram which is the NP immediately preceding it. In (151), it relates to mohan and not to ram since mohan is the NP immediately preceding it. In (152) the emphatic tak relates to ram, the NP immediately preceding it. In (153), tak relates to sawal for the same reason. In (154) and (155), there is no preceding NP or CP to which hi and tak, respectively, can relate. Hence, the sentences are ungrammatical.
From the point of view of their dependency and the way they have to relate to NPs, etc., svayam, hi and tak form a natural group. We could perhaps lebel l these "emphatics" and distinguish them from the genuine anaphors, which are governed by (140) a reasonable step, considering too that semantic interprestation assigns a different reading to them. They are assigned the reading of emphasis where seminar analysis are assigned the reading, roughlyspeaking of being identical to their anteatents.
Section V: b
We turn to pronouns now. The GB literature is concerned with the issue of disjoint reference with respect to the pronoun and not with the issue of the choice of antecedent of the same. If at all, the concern with the way a pronoun is bound is only through default, if one might say so. In contrast, we here are concerned directly with the issue of antecedent choice of the pronoun within the sentence. Besides, if PRO is a pronominal anaphor, then in its antecedent-choice, one would justifiably except it to demonstrate its pronoun and anaphor - like behaviour. But then, the binding theory as stated in LGB and subsequent modifications of it does not apply to PRO at all in the relevant respect. The control theory is hardly anything more than a set of stipulations and descriptive statements. The binding theory under reference which defines the binding domain in terms of governing category cannot apply to the antecedent choice of PRO. But a different binding theory as the one proposed here, which does not define the binding domain in terms of the governing category may not be restricted in the same way. We feel that the question of the antecedent choice of PRO deserves to be looked into from the point of view outlined above. It being so, the question of antecedent choice of the pronoun within S legitimately falls within the scope of the binding theory.
As mentioned already, both anaphors and pronouns are referentially dependent elements but while an anaphor must receive an antecedent within the smallest possible domain, pronouns, on the contrary, can receive reference from a very wide domain. This we have treated to be definitional in character. That is, pronouns and anaphors can be defined and thereby distinquished this way.
We know how anaphors receive antecedents. Since pronouns and anaphors have contrastive features, what can we say about the way pronouns get antecedents in sentence grammar? From our knowledge of anaphors what hypothesis about the antecedent choice of pronouns in sentence grammar can we have constoruct?
If the anaphor has to receive its antecedent in the smallest possible domain, then we would expect the pronoun not to receive an antecedent in that domain. Recall that P is the domain in which the anaphor most ordinarily receives its antecedent. Therefore P is the domain in which the pronoun must not receive its antecedent.
There are exceptional cases in which the anaphor receives its antecedent in P or P', theones in which the mukhya itself is an anaphor. It is reasonable to think of these as exceptional cases, at least partly because here a mukhya which ordinarily is the antecedent, now has to look for an antecedent. Thus, although ordinarily P is the smallest domain of anaphor binding, P does become the smallest domain in some as mentioned above. We would expect a pronoun to receive an antecedent in P' but since in P' the anaphor can also get its antecedent, we would expect the pronoun to choose an antecedent which is not mukhya (henceforth non-mukhya). Since ananaphor cannot receive antecedent from beyond the P or the CP*, we can expect the pronoun to freely choose its antecedent outside P' or CP* but within the root S (where root S > CP*).
 
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