Syntactic Constraints On Anaphoric Binding

Abstract

One of the primary advantages of the treatment of syntactic constraints on anaphoric binding that has been presented here is that it provides a framework for stating binding constraints in a precise manner. The framework makes explicit predictions as to which noun phrases will be considered when anaphoric binding constraints are applied. In this sense, anaphoric binding constraints are different from relations of conference. If two elements are coreferent, this may satisfy some positive constraint or violate some negative constraint; coreference between the two might also be irrelevant to any binding constraint. These cases can be easily distinguished in this framework. Stating constraints in terms of binding equations makes it easy to express interactions between binding constraints; such interactions are even predicted in some cases. In the absence of such a framework, it is difficult even to frame the question of what interactions can occur; given an explicit statement of the binding constraints, such interactions are easy to observe.