In linguistics, binding is the phenomenon in which anaphoric elements such as pronouns are grammatically associated with their antecedents. For instance in the English sentence "Mary saw herself", the anaphor "herself" is bound by its antecedent "Mary". Binding can be licensed or blocked in certain contexts or syntactic configurations, e.g. the pronoun "her" cannot be bound by "Mary" in the English sentence "Mary saw her". While all languages have binding, restrictions on it vary even among closely related languages. Binding has been a major area of research in syntax and semantics since the 1970s and, as the name implies, is a core component of government and binding theory.
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👉 Binding (linguistics) in the context of Syntax-semantics interface
In linguistics, the syntax–semantics interface is the interaction between syntax and semantics. Its study encompasses phenomena that pertain to both syntax and semantics, with the goal of explaining correlations between form and meaning. Specific topics include scope, binding, and lexical semantic properties such as verbal aspect and nominal individuation, semantic macroroles, and unaccusativity.
The interface is conceived of very differently in formalist and functionalist approaches. While functionalists tend to look into semantics and pragmatics for explanations of syntactic phenomena, formalists try to limit such explanations within syntax itself. Aside from syntax, other aspects of grammar have been studied in terms of how they interact with semantics; which can be observed by the existence of terms such as morphosyntax–semantics interface.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Binding (linguistics)
- 👉 Binding (linguistics) in the context of Syntax-semantics interface
- Binding (linguistics) in the context of Government and binding theory
- Binding (linguistics) in the context of Antecedent (grammar)
Binding (linguistics) in the context of Government and binding theory
Government and binding (GB, GBT) is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in The Minimalist Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, the latest being Three Factors in Language Design (2005). Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda.
The name refers to two central subtheories of the theory: government, which is an abstract syntactic relation applicable, among other things, to the assignment of case; and binding, which deals chiefly with the relationships between pronouns and the expressions with which they are co-referential. GB was the first theory to be based on the principles and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the minimalist program.
View the full Wikipedia page for Government and binding theoryBinding (linguistics) in the context of Antecedent (grammar)
In grammar, an antecedent is one or more words that identifies a pronoun or other pro-form. For example, in the sentence "John arrived late because traffic held him up," the word "John" is the antecedent of the pronoun "him." Pro-forms usually follow their antecedents, but sometimes precede them. In the latter case, the more accurate term would technically be postcedent, although this term is not commonly distinguished from antecedent because the definition of antecedent usually encompasses it. The linguistic term that is closely related to antecedent and pro-form is anaphora. Theories of syntax explore the distinction between antecedents and postcedents in terms of binding.
View the full Wikipedia page for Antecedent (grammar)