The Syntax of Anaphoric Binding

Cross-linguistically, anaphoric elements vary a great deal. One finds long- and short- distance reflexives, sometimes within the same language; pronominals may require local noncoreference, or coreference only with nonsubjects. Analyses of the syntax of anaphoric binding which have attempted to fit all languages into the mold of English are clearly inadequate to account for the rich range of syntactic constraints that are attested. How, then, can the cross-linguistic regularities exhibited by anaphoric elements be captured, while at the same time accounting for the diversity that is found?

In this book, Mary Dalrymple provides a theory of the syntax of anaphoric binding, couched in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. She shows that syntactic constraints on anaphoric binding can be expressed in terms of just three grammatical concepts: subject, predicate and tense. These concepts define a set of complex constraints, combinations of which interact to predict the wide range of universally-available syntactic conditions which anaphoric elements obey.

Mary Dalrymple is a member of the research staff of the Natural Language Theory and Technology group at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Ceneter. Her recent work focuses on the relation between syntax and semantics.

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