Bound to Bind

Abstract

Two familiar ideas in the theory of binding are explored: that semantic binding is preferred over coreference (Reinhart 1983) and that (pronoun) binding seeks the closest antecedent (Fox 2000). It is shown that both proposals, when combined, yield an alternative and arguably simpler approach to the co-binding facts discussed by Heim (1993), but that neither alone does (contrary to what is suggested in Fox 2000). Then a unification of both ideas is proposed. Interestingly, the resulting system no longer entails one of Heim's (1993) conclusions, namely, that (co)reference must be marked by syntactic (co)indexing.