Binding, Phases, and Locality
In: Syntax, Band 11, Heft 3, S. 281-298
ISSN: 1467-9612
Abstract. The central issue addressed here is syntactic locality, and the main proposal is that movement and anaphoric relations are governed by a unified concept of locality. The specific phenomena to be investigated are (i) infinitive constructions, in particular, Accusativus cum Infinitivo (AcI) complements, (ii) the German Possessor Dative Construction (PDC), with a dative nominal playing the role of both possessor and affectee, and (iii) binding, the conditions under which reflexive and nonreflexive pronouns may occur. The focus is mainly on binding and how to account for instances of noncomplementarity, but also on the PDC, which can be analyzed as possessor raising. Ultimately, it will become clear that the unifying principle of locality must be the phase, and that phasehood determines the transparency/opacity of phrases (CP, vP, DP, and PP) for both movement and anaphoric relations.