Binding relations Flashcards
What is binding?
Binding describes the relationship between nouns in the sentence using the notions of structural relations (dominance, precedence, c-command).
The semantic types of NP?
1) R-expressions (referring expressions)
2) pronouns
3) anaphors
What are R-expressions?
R-expression: An NP that gets its meaning by referring to an entity in the world (proper nouns, common nouns, nouns with modifiers etc.).
What are pronouns?
Pronoun: An NP that may (but need not) get its meaning from another word in the sentence. (typical pronouns are I, you, me, him, her, us, them, one, my, his, her, their…)
What is an anaphor?
An anaphor: an NP which obligatorily gets its meaning from another NP in a sentence
(reflexive pronouns and reciprocals, e.g. each other).
What is antecedence?
An antecedent is NP which gives meaning to a pronoun or anaphor.
Coindexation, coreference?
To show that two NPs refer to the same entity, we give them the same subscript letter, an index.
The NPs that get the same index are said to be coindexed.
NPs which are coindexed are said to corefer: they refer to the same entity in the world.
What is a binding theory?
The theory of syntactic restrictions on where the different NP types can appear in a sentence is called Binding Theory.
Binding: A binds B if and only if A c-commands B and A and B are coindexed.
Binding requires both coindexation and c-command, but it is not a symmetric relation: the binder (or antecedent) must do the c-commanding of the bindee, not the reverse.
Binding principle A?
Binding Principle A: an anaphor must be
bound in its binding domain.
Binding principle B?
Binding principle B: a pronoun must be free
(i.e. not bound) in its binding domain.
Binding principle C?
Binding principle C: an R-expression must be free.
What is a binding domain?
A binding domain is the syntactic space in which an anaphor must find its antecedent.
