Schlenker, Philippe. 2005. "Non-Redundancy: Towards A Semantic
Reinterpretation of Binding Theory" (not the final version; the
final version appeared in Natural Language Semantics 13,
1: 1-92, 2005)
[Full paper
in pdf]
Abstract: In generative grammar, Binding Theory is traditionally
considered a part of syntax, in the sense that some derivations that
would otherwise be interpretable are ruled out by purely formal principles.
Thus 'Johni likes himi' would in standard
semantic theories yield a perfectly acceptable interpretation; it
is only because of Condition B that the sentence is deviant on its coreferential
reading. We explore an alternative in which some binding-theoretic principles
(esp. Condition C, Condition B, a modified version of the Locality of
Variable Binding argued for in Kehler 1993 and Fox 2000, and Weak and
Strong Crossover) follow from the interpretive procedure - albeit a somewhat
non-standard one. In a nutshell, these principles are taken to reflect
the way in which sequences of evaluation are constructed in the course
of the interpretation of a sentence. The bulk of the work is done by a
principle of Non-Redundancy, which prevents any object from appearing
twice in any given sequence of evaluation. The analysis includes an account
of anaphora with split antecedents and disjoint reference effects.