Government Binding Theory

Robert N. St. Clair

University of Louisville

Introduction

There were a series of major developments leading to the rise of Government and Binding Theory. In the atavistic version of syntactic theory which was published as Syntactic Structures (1957), Chomsky argued for syntax as the basis for correlating the linguistic meanings (the semantic component) with linguistic forms (the phonological component). At that time, syntax consisted of three kinds of rules: (1) The phrase structure rules ordered the parts of a sentence into linguistic categories and provided the lexical forms for nouns, verbs, prepositions, and adjectives; (2) the transformational rules operated on deep structures and reordered the phrase structural forms; and (3) morphophonemic rules merely changed lexical forms where necessary ( e.g. go + past = went). The phrase structure Rules created the deep structures of sentences. The transformational rules operated on these deep structures to produce the surface structures of the language. These transformational rules were ordered.

By 1965, the model was greatly expanded and revised. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Chomsky included a detailed account of the semantic component (projections rules, global insertion rules, selectional restrictions, rules for the interpretation of subcategorization, and semantic distinguishers). The most innovative work on the semantic component was done prior to this time as evidenced in the publication of An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions (1964) by Jerrold Katz and Paul Postal. This was enhanced further by the co-authored work on The Structure of Language (1964) by Jerrold Katz and Jerrold Fodor. The phonological component was also greatly enhanced the inclusion of underlying phonemic forms, ordered rules, and phonetic outputs. The most definitive work on the phonological component can be found in The Sound Patterns of English (Chomsky and Halle, 1968). This publication provided the theoretical framework for a universal theory of phonology (distinctive feature theory, the principle of stress rules, the phonological cycle, phonological constraints, etc.).

The aforementioned model became known as The Standard Theory. By 1972 more revisions in the model took place and this led to a renaming of the revised standard theory. It became known as The Extended Standard Theory. There were several reasons for these revisions. What was referred to as the Semantic Representation of a sentence was no longer seen as a single, uniform structure. The syntactic component interacted with the semantic component of the language many times during the processing of syntactic structures. Before the application of transformational rules, for example, the deep structure went to the semantic component where it was interpreted in terms of its functional structures. At this time, the semantic component provided information on the interpretation of the various semantic roles used in the sentence such as agent, patient, goal, experiencer, etc. This deep structure continues to be processed syntactically as it goes through the various cycles of transformational rules. This information is again turned over to the semantic component for further interpretation. This time the semantic component provides information on modal structures such as the scope of negation, and the interpretation of quantifiers in the language. Another kind of semantic information developed at this stage includes the establishment of a table of coreferences in the sentence being analyzed.

 

Mary saw herself in the mirror. (co-referential) Mary saw her in the mirror. (not co-referential) Mary thinks that she is attractive. (no specification of referentiality)

These rules, it should be noted, could not be processed at the deep structure level and the process had to be delayed until certain modifications and rule applications had taken place within the transformational component of the language. Finally, at the surface structure level, the output of the final transformational cycle is sent to the semantic component for further processing. This time the semantic representation is analyzed for focus, presuppositions, topicalization. The presupposition of a declarative sentence has to do with what the speaker assumes the hearer knows. Focus, on the other hand, has to do with what the speaker assumes that the hearer does not know. Focus is symbolized in the following sentences by means of bold-faced capitalized words. Such words have extra heavy stress.

Mary drank the MILK Presuppositions: Mary exists, Mary did something, Mary drank something. Focus: She drank milk and not water. MARY drank the mild. Presuppositions: same as before Focus: Mary drank the milk and not John. John saw Mary Old Information: We know that John did something. New Information: We did not know that he saw Mary. Mary was seen by John Old Information: We know that Mary was seen. New Information: We did not know who saw her.

Ray Jackendoff has been instrumental in the development of the Extended Standard Theory. The arguments for the current revisions are stated in Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar (1972). One of the concerns that he voiced during these revisions was the need for autonomous syntax. He proposed that transformations should be applied without having to mention semantic information such as referentiality within a table of coreference, the use of index markers, etc. This could be done, he argued, by changing the kind of information allowed in the deep structure in the Standard Theory. Consider, for example, the rules of reflexivization, pronominalization, and Equi-NP deletion. In each of these cases, full lexical forms are assumed to exist at the deep structure level. In reflexivization, John saw John is transformed into John saw himself. This requires semantic information on coreferentiality. In the case of pronominalization, coreferentiality is also needed to transform Mary wonders if Mary will be happy into Mary wonders if she will be happy. In the case of Equi-NP Deletion, coreferentiality is also need to transform Mary expects Mary to win into Mary expects to win. One could avoid these references to the semantic component, Jackendoff argued, if pronouns and dummy subjects (gaps) already exist at the deep structure level. This introduction of abstract elements and empty categories into the deep structure of sentences marked an important turning point in linguistic theory. It led to the emergence of GB Theory. Nevertheless, before turning to this major revision based on the premise of autonomous syntax, it is important to review the representation of the model of the Extended Standard Theory. This is the model of grammar without autonomous syntax.

The development of Government and Binding Theory as a modular model really began in 1977 when Chomsky and Lasnik proposed some major revisions in the Extended Standard Theory. In this article on "Filters and Control" (Linguistic Inquiry 8.3), they questioned the necessity of phrase structure rules in the context of lexical subcategorizational rules in the lexicon which provided similar information. They also addressed the question of transformational rules with regard to stylistic rules versus meaning changing rules. The issues addressed in this early article were further addressed by Noam Chomsky in his writings on Lectures on Government and Binding (1981) and Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding (1982). He became less concerned with regard to the base generability in transformational grammar and more concerned with Structure-Preserving Constraints on language. The revisions led to a modular model of transformational grammar.

Since the concepts of Deep Structure and Surface Structure were substantially revised by the inclusion of abstract elements, trace elements, and empty categories, they were given a new nomenclature, d-structure and s-structure respectively. These are related to each other by means of movement rules. S-structures were further developed into Phonetic Forms or Logical Forms. What is called phonetic form involves more than mere acoustic and articulatory information. It included semantic properties, and low-level transformational rules (such as stylistic rules), deletion rules, contraction rules and phonological rules. The Logical Form Component deals with the meaning of sentences.
The distinction between PF and LF components was necessary because they represented very different aspects and concerns within grammatical theory. The LF component deals with semantic information.

PF Component: John likes Mary LF Component: For every x, x is a person, Mary likes x.

Concerns about Binding Conditions are dealt with in the LF Component because they involve semantic issues (referential dependencies, coreferences, etc.). Similarly, quantifier raising dealt with semantic issues within the context of the LF Component. This component began by representing information in terms of standard logic, but was modified to incorporate constituent command, trace theory, and other linguistic issues.

The differences between a d-structure and an s-structure captures what changes have taken place once a movement rule has applied. But GB Theory involves a lot more than merely revising the deep structure of a grammar. In includes many new features:

D-Structure, Fully Recoverable D-Structures, S-Structure, X-Bar Theory Movement Rules, Trace Theory, Empty Categories Case Filters, Theta Theory, Well-Formedness Conditions,

Consider how the surface structure sentence " Did John invite Mary?" was dealt with in the extended theory of syntax.

Deep Structure: John past invite Mary Question past John invite Mary Affix Hopping Do Support do+past John invite Mary Surface Structure: Did John invite Mary?

In the GB Theory, movement rules are severely restricted. One can only move elements to unfilled (empty) or to certain designated categories . The sentence is now represented as an inflectional phrase (IP).

One of the movement rules takes the INFL form (past) and moves it into only open and empty category of Complement. In the event that the INFL is not moved, Do is deleted by means of a Do Drop Rule. Within this model, there are three kinds of movement rules. One that moves NPs (maximal projections), another that moves Heads of Phrases, and a third that moves Wh-constructions.

Another major change that took place in the transition from the Extended Standard Theory to GB Theory has to do with the shift from rules to representations. In the earlier models of transformational grammar, one accounted for grammatical changes by means of syntactic rules.

Deep Structure: John past see Mary Passive Mary past be+en see by John Affix Hop Mary past+be see+en by John Surface Structure: Mary was seen by John

Such a rule had to be language specific. Only English, for example, insert be+en before the main verb and insert by before the agentive noun phrase. If transformational rules are to be universal, they cannot also be language specific. Hence, the system has to be changed. What is needed, Chomsky argued, is a theory that relies on conditions on these representations. These conditions operate at all levels and employ general rules such as:

MOVE NP

This change became known as the Principles and Parameters Approach. Later, it came to be called Government and Binding Theory. This shift from rules to conditions on representations avoided language specific rules. It also strengthened the concept of the language acquisition device (LAD) in psycholinguistics. In the earlier model, a child was given a toolbox and was asked to construct a grammar for himself. He has some idea of what a grammar should look like, but he has no idea about universal principles govern all grammars. This could happen only if he were provided with a set of principles which defined the parameters and the conditions operating on syntactic representations. This is exactly what GB Theory attempts to do. This is why the shift from rules to conditions on representations had to take place. It provides a child with the principles and the conditions on natural languages and allows him to set the parameters in that language such as SOV or VSO word order, etc.

CATEGORIES AND PHRASE STRUCTURES

In every phrase, there is always an obligatory element. This element is called the head of the category. The head of a Noun Phrase is the Noun. The head of a Verb Phrase is the Verb. The head of an Adjectival Phrase is the Adjective. The head of a Prepositional Phrase is the Preposition. From this awareness, they noted a similarity among all phrases, viz. X (N, V, A, P) is the head of XP (NP, VP, AP,PP).

 

N is head of NP V is head of VP A is head of AP P is head of PP ______________________ Therefore, X is head of XP

This concept become known as X-Bar Theory where X stands for the head of XP (phrase). The more interesting questions to emerge have to do with the head of a sentence and the head of a complement phrase. The rationale for the head of a sentential phrase is the inflectional marker, INFL. The inflectional marker includes much more than mere tense markers. It also had to do with agreement features, etc. Given the analogy of X is the head of XP, one must reinterpret INFL as the head of the sentence or IP. As for the head of the complement phrase, it is obviously, the complement. Hence, C is the head of CP.

INFL is the head of IP, or I is the head of IP COMP is the head of CP, or C is the head of CP

This focus on the head and its projections became known as the core grammar. This means that any other elements added to these phrases are adjuncts (add-ons).

The destruction of the city in April of 1945. Head of NP Adjunct

John saw Mary this afternoon. Head of IP Adjunct

whether John will see Mary tomorrow afternoon. Head of CP Adjunct

It should be obvious from the aforementioned examples that what has been normally called temporal adverbs are now treated as adjuncts to phrases. They are no longer considered to be peripheral part of the sentence and does not belong to the core grammar.

Some of the terminology and insights used in X-Bar Theory are related to similar research done in the area of morphology. Linguists have always studied how words are put together to form morphological units or compounds. These compounds function as though they were single words: blackmail, skyscraper, bathroom, bookshelf, football, in-crowd, etc. Two combinations of words within compounds have drawn the most attention and commentary in linguistic analysis. One of these has to do with constructions in which one of the elements is a headword (endocentric) and the other element acts a modifier of that headword. Such a combination is known as an endocentric construction. Bookshelf, for example, is an endocentric construction because "books" modify the headword "shelf". Such compounds are easy to detect because the combined elements function to define a subclass of one of the nouns in the construction. A bookshelf is a shelf for books. Similarly, a nosebleed is a kind of bleeding from the nose. The other kind of construction which morphologists are found of discussing is constructions with contrast with endocentric compounds. These are called exocentric constructions and they are defined negatively because the combined elements do not share a headword and modifier relationship. Scapegoat, for example, is not a kind of a goat. It is a kind of a person. Hence, this is an exocentric construction. What is interesting to GB Theory about this investigation of morphological constructions is the fact that endocentric constructions have many interesting parallels with X-Bar phrases. The headword functions as the head of the compound noun just as the noun functions as the head of a noun phrase. The conclusion that one draws from this information is that all XP constructions are endocentric. This discovery has been stated in even strong terms: there are no exocentric constructions among XPs.

It is not enough to note that a phrase consists of a head and a modifying element. It is important to also consider how these relationships are structured. When all of the categories within a phrase are strung out in a linear pattern, this is called a flat structure.

In a flat structure, all of the elements are connected by means of sister adjunction. They all belong to the same category (NP). There is abundant evidence that phrases are structured hierarchically. This evidence comes from the study of pro-forms. This is when a category is replaced by another form (pro-noun, pro-verb, pro-sentence, etc.). What is actually taking place with pro-form substitution is that some hierarchical structure is replaced by another form, a pro-form. These substitutions operate on structures. They are structure-based. These structure occur in layers. They are layered structures.

 

NP: I saw John talking to Mary. I saw him talking to her. PP: John is going to London next week. John is going there next week. VP: John saw Mary and Bill saw Mary. John saw Mary and so did Bill. AP: John saw the pretty child and Mary saw the pretty child. John saw the pretty child and Mary saw her too.

XPs consist of a head element within a phrasal construction. The head is a lexical category and the phrasal component is called a projection. Since these projects may occur in layers, one speaks of the top most layer as the maximal projection of a phrase. NP is the maximal projection of N. VP is the maximal projection of V. There are intermediate projections, however, that must be accounted for in describing the structure of phrases. These are called X-Bar projections.

HEAD	MAXIMAL PROJECTION	X-BAR PROJECTION
V	VP	V-BAR
N	NP	N-BAR
A	AP	A-BAR
P	PP	P-BAR

One would naturally ask how many levels or layers of structure can occur from the maximal projection of a phrase to its head. In GB Theory, there are only two such projections allowed - the maximal projection (XP) and the intermediate projection (X-Bar). It should be noted that in addition to a head element and its projection, there is another element within a phrase. The element is known as the specifier (SPEC). A similar element can be found at the CP level and it is known as the complement C. Both specifiers and complements are not syntactic categories. In this regard they differ from X-Double Bar (XP), X-Bar, and X categories. These elements are empty categories. They function as locations for parts of the structure of a phrase that may be filled in by actual syntactic categories in the process of the application of a movement rule. Both Spec and C occur at the second level along with X-Bar categories.

Given this awareness of endocentric constructions, one can now visualize how an XP structure is represented.

C-COMMAND AND GOVERNMENT

Ralph in the matrix sentence commands the pronoun in the embedded sentence. Notice that the matrix sentence is also located on the left and prior to the embedded sentence. Language found that another kind of relationship needed to be made explicit and he call this precedence. Hence, he concluded from the study of the data he was working with that if a noun phrase occurs in a lower sentence,, but it precedes another identical noun phrase in the matrix sentence, it will pronominalize the NP on the right. What this means, in essence, is that the order of the elements in pronominalization is significant.

Pronominalization occurs if an identical NP precedes another NP (the precedence relationship). It also occurs if an identical NP is higher in the phrase marker (command relationship). As Langacker investigated this phenomenon, he noted that something else besides precedence and command to account for some anomalies that he encountered among more deeply embedded sentences. He realized that pronominalization did not work in the more deeply embedded phrase markers.

There is some kind of barrier between the identical NPs and their pronominalized forms. It is not enough to merely state that one of them commands another or that one of them precedes another. The chain of command has to be more direct. Langacker turned to the concept of dominance to explain the aforementioned sentences. He noted that an identical NP must directly dominate its pronoun. If some kind of barrier prevents the dominance from being direct, pronominalization will not take place. Chomsky was to take this concept of barriers and use it as one of the basic conditions within his Government and Binding Theory (cf. Barrier by Chomsky, 1986).

Klima used the term "in construction with" to explain the scope of negation. Given two constituents A and B, B is said to be in construction with A if node C that directly dominates A also dominates B.

Negation is in construction with the subject NP (John). Negation is is not in construction with the object NP (Mary) since the node (VP) that directly dominates the object NP (Mary) does not also dominate Negation. Obviously, the relationships between "in construction with" and "chain of command" (dominance, command and precedence) are similar. However, these are not equivalent concepts with regard to constituent structure. The framework that Langacker developed included more information and could explain much more with regard to dominance than the model proposed by Klima. Langacker's concept could explain both negation and pronominalization, Klima's could only account for the scope of negation.

She had some money She did not have any money You will marry someone You will not marry anyone.

Consider what happens when these sentences are embedded. The result of what quantifiers surfaces depends on whether or not the negation marker is located in the matrix or in the embedded sentence.

The negation marker changes the quantifier (someone) into anyone. In this case, the negation marker directly dominates the quantifier. Now, consider what happens when the negation marker does not directly dominate the quantifier.

Since the negation marker is in the matrix sentence, it does not directly dominate the quantifier in the embedded sentence. Hence, someone remains unaffected by the scope of negation. What makes the scope of negation interesting is that it forces one to recognize the concept of grammatical barrier that limit the scope of certain transformational rules. Notice that barriers can be found when one is dealing with infinitival complements. The question that one may ask is whether or not other grammatical constructions are also within the scope of negation? This can be ascertained by looking at the following examples of that-clauses and relative clauses.

I didn't realize that she had any money. I didn't rob the woman who had some money. *I didn't rob the woman who had any money.

 

It turns out that the negation marker can reach down into a that-clause, but it cannot reach down into a relative clause. It controls only up to a certain position on the phrase marker tree. Hence, relative clauses are not within the scope of negation. They provided barriers to the rule of the scope of negation. The following sentence is ambiguous with regard to the scope of negation.

The citizen could not vote for the proposition.

 

It could mean:

It would not be possible for the citizen to vote for the proposition It would be possible for the citizen not to vote for the proposition.

 

In order to disambiguate these sentences and ensure a proper interpretation of these sentences, one only needs to locate the negation marker on the phrase marker.

The citizen [could not] vote for the proposition. The citizen could vote [not for the proposition]

 

The modal (could) and the verb phrase (vote for the proposition) form two separate constituent groups. If the negation marker (not) is attached to the model, it commands one interpretation. If it is attached to the VP, it commands another interpretation. Linguists are always looking for some kind of verification that their analyses are correct. In this case, the placement of the adverb "simply" provides corroborating evidence. These lexical items can only be placed at the beginning of a VP. There are two verb phrase items in question in the aforementioned sentences. One of them is [vote for the proposition] and the other is [not vote for the proposition]. By placing "simply" at the leftmost position in the VP, one confirms that "not" in one sentence belongs to the modal, and "not" in the other sentence belongs to the VP.

The citizen [could not] [ simply vote for the proposition] The citizen could vote [ simply not for the proposition]

Another form of syntactic corroboration for this placement of negation in the phrase marker comes from the transformation known as Pseudo-Cleft: What X did was Y. Hence, the following examples of pseudo-clefting corroborate the fact that negation controls the modal in once sentence and the verb phrase in the other.

What the citizen could not do is vote for the proposition What the citizen could do is not vote for the proposition

Finally, further evidence comes from the negation contraction transformation. This rule only operates on negative forms that modify a modal.

What the citizen could not do is vote for the proposition What the citizen couldn't do is vote for the proposition. The citizen [could not] simply vote for the proposition The citizen [couldn't] simply vote for the proposition

Just when one is happy to learn that the chain of command can explain the phenomenon of pronominalization and the scope of negation, it turns out that these principles of control can also explain wh-formation within the context where wh+some forms the question word "what.":

The WH Marker commands the quantifier "some." Consequently wh+some becomes what. This marker controls elements in the embedded sentence. It does not control other elements in the matrix sentence. Hence, it could not produce the following sentences because some reason and some man are not within the control of the wh-marker.

*Some man asked I wanted some book for what reason. *What man asked I wanted some book for some reason.

Once one is aware of the fact that there is a chain of command within a phrase marker, the next concern for linguists had to do with why some rules were blocked by barriers which also isolated certain portions of the phrase marker into islands. Not all constructions worked the same way. Infinitival complements and that-clauses were open to the scope of negation. Relative clauses were not open to the scope of negation. Barriers, the Complex NP Constraint of Ross, protected some examples of wh-formation. In other cases, the barriers did not protect wh-formation. What this mean is that syntactic research had a new set of problems to solve. It would not be until the rise of Government Binding Theory that most of these problems could be satisfactorily deal with. When these issues are dealt within in GB Theory, however, they are referred to within a very different context and with a different vocabulary. Dominating nodes, for example, will be called "mother nodes." Dominated nodes will be called "daughter nodes." The relationships of command, precedence and dominance are all treated as examples of C-Command (Constituent Command).

C-COMMAND, M-COMMAND AND GOVERNMENT

Chomsky has noted that a phrase marker is essentially a graph in which the nodes (the sets of points) are connected by branches (solid lines). The labels used in the nodes may be maximal projections (X-Double-Bar), intermediate projections (X-Bar), or final projections, i.e., non-terminal nodes (NP, M, V, P, and other category labels). Within the revised model, some of these nodes may be empty (e). Also within the revised model, when elements are moved, they leave back a trace element (t). Another distinction made in Government Binding Theory has to do with the nature of dominance and precedence.

The S node occurs higher on the phrase marker tree and it dominates all other nodes. The VP nodes dominates the V node and its terminal node (stay). One node immediately dominates another node if it is the next higher node in the phrase marker tree that is connected by a solid line. Hence, the S node immediately dominates NP, M, and VP nodes. The S node dominates the PP node, but it does not immediately dominate that node. Another relationship that merits comment with regard to the phrase marker tree is that of precedence. On node precedes another if it is located on the left of the other node. Hence, the M nodes precede VP, V, PP, NP, N (hence, the terminal nodes stay at home). The M node immediately precedes the VP and the V nodes (the terminal node (stay). What is important about these relationships of dominance and precedence is that Chomsky used them to define the terms of exhaustive dominance of constituents and immediate constituents. 

CONSTITUTENTS (CHOMSKY)

Nodes form a constituent if and only if (iff) they are a set of nodes that are exhaustively dominated by a common node. In the aforementioned example, NP, M, and VP all branch out of the same single common node (S). Therefore, S exhaustively dominates NP, M, and VP. Therefore, in general terms one could say that X is a constituent of Y iff X is dominated by Y. Similarly, on notes that X is an immediate constituent of Y iff X is immediately dominated by Y.

The mother node A dominates nodes B, C, D, E, and F. The mother node A immediately dominates the nodes B and C. The sister nodes D, E, and F are immediately dominated by the daughter node C. Mothers [A] dominate their daughters [B C] and nieces [D E F]. Mothers [A], however, can only immediately dominate their own daughters [B C]. Daughters [C] have their own children [D E F] and immediately dominate them. Nieces [D E F] are not exhaustively dominated by the mother node [A], but they [D E F ] are exhaustively dominated by the daughter node [C].

Chomsky was asked many times why he did not use the traditional notion of dividing a sentence into a subject and a predicate. He was asked this question again when confronted with Fillmore's Case Grammar. His reply was that such relationships have to do with grammatical functions and not grammatical forms. Further, these functions can be readily ascertained by looking at the dominance and precedence relationships within a phrase marker.

 

Subject of the Sentence = [NP, S] Direct Object of the Sentence = [NPa, VP] Indirect Object of the Sentence = [NPb, VP] Prepositional Object = [NP, PP]

The subject of a sentence is the NP which is immediately dominated by S. The object of a sentence is the leftmost NP immediately dominated by VP. If two NPs occur to the left of the VP, the first is the direct object and the second is the Indirect object. The object of a preposition is defined structurally. It is the NP which is immediately dominated by a PP. The use of dominance and precedence to characterize the parts of speech, however, is not the only reason why these relationships are important. They play important roles in many other areas of syntax and semantics. Chomsky referred to these other uses of dominance and precedence as Constituent-Command (C-Command).

When one considers the notion of C-Command in terms of its mother / daughter relationships (Nota Bene: for the Italians this would be the father/son relationships), the concept is easy. A node C-Commands its sisters, its nieces, and its grand nieces.

The nodes D and E are sisters. The first branching node above these sisters is the daughter node C. This means that C immediately dominates D and E. The node C also dominates nodes F and G. Now, according to Chomsky, one node c-commands other nodes if and only if that node is not subordinate to another node and both are commanded by a common node. The node C commands D and E. The node D is to the left of E. The node D does not command E and vice versa (The node E does not command D). This means that the node D now c-commands E, F, and G. This means that the left sister node D is in a position to c-command its sisters and their nieces. The node D c-commands E, F, and G because it is at the same level as node E and it is higher on the tree than nodes F and G. Now, node E is also a sister node with D and the common node C commands it. This means that node E c-commands node D.

The mother node A c-commands nothing. It is not a sister. The daughter node B c-commands C, D, E, F, G (daughters, sisters, nieces) The daughter node C c-commands E, F, G (fellow sister and nieces) The sister node E c-commands D (the other sister) The niece node F c-commands G (the other niece) The niece node G c-commands F (the other niece).

The notion of c-command is used to explain how anaphora works. As one has noted earlier, in GB Theory, pronouns are co-indexed. An anaphor takes its reference from another expression in the sentence. The element that serves as a reference is known as the antecedent of the anaphor.

John and Mary love themselves (reflexives) [antecedent] [anaphor] John and Mary love each other. (reciprocals) [antecedent] [anaphor]

What these examples demonstrate is that an anaphor must have an antecedent which c-commands it. If the antecedent c-commands the anaphor, the conditions are right for the formation of reflexives or reciprocals in a language.

In the sentence "they loved themselves," the subject "they" c-commands the object "themselves." The subject is the antecedent (they) of the reflexive object (themselves). Consequently, the antecedent c-commands its anaphor. Chomsky calls this the C-Command Condition.

There are several conditions under which one NP is interpreted as being coreferential with another. One of these has already been discussed, viz., anaphors (reflexives and reciprocals). But, pronouns (pronominals) and other kinds of reference expressions (R-expressions) also require this kind of interpretation.

Mary thinks that she is going to be a mother. (Mary and she refers to the same person) Mary thinks that John is the father. (Mary and John are R-expressions without coreference)

The conditions under which NPs are interpreted as being coreferential with other NPs is known as Binding Theory. IN addition to the condition of coreferentiality, binding theory also has a lot to say about how these elements are bound. This means that binding theory has to explain how one constituent or argument commands another (i.e., the notion of c-command is relevant here). What is important in this case, however, is that no constituent can c-command elements outside of the maximal projection that contains it. The maximal projection is known as the governing category and the c-commanding argument is called the governor.

The subject NP (Mary) c-commands the object NP (me). Note that S is the governing category of the object pronoun (Me). The governor of me is V and it is contained within the maximal projection (S). so far, one knows that binding theory has to do with the establishment of a governing category and a governor. One also knows that binding theory uses the concept of c-command to specify the condition under which a governor can bind a NP. One other concept is needed to explain binding theory. This has to do with the argument of a binding category. The term "argument" implies that a semantic role has been assigned to the NP under discussion. This assignment is called a theta-role. Such assignments are within the domain of Theta Theory. In the aforementioned example, the NP (me) is an argument because it has been assigned the theta role of Object. This assignment of the Object Role to the NP was accomplished in Theta Theory. In particular, the V of the VPP governs the bound NP and assigns it the role of Object. In order for a governor (V) to assign such a role, it must also be within the governing category (VP) of the NP (me). Later, case theory will assign this an accusative form if the conditions are right. Finally, it should be noted that the subject NP and the reflexive object NP are in the same clause. They are clause mates. They share the same local domain. This means that they have the same binding domain. This makes the reflexive locally bound.

[COMP [Harryj loves himselfj] VP is the governing category V (loves) is the governor NP himself) is assigned a theta role V c-commands NP NP (Subject) is coindexed with Reflexive Pronoun (Object) The coindexed NPs (the antecedent and the anaphor) are in the same binding domain. The anaphoric NP is locally bound. V governs and bounds NP

This assignment under governance prevents the wrong assignment of theta roles and case markings to pronouns. For example, "*me saw her." Binding theory guarantees that only sentences with anaphors that are properly governed will be predicted as being grammatical. Binding occurs when the antecedent NP c-commands the anaphor and the antecedent and the anaphor are coindexed.
Now, it is the time to consider what happens within an embedded sentence when the subject of the matrix sentence is not coindexed with the object of the embedded sentence. In this case, one finds both government and constituent command, but because the antecedent and the anaphor are not coindexed. As a consequence, no binding occurs. The pronominal is free. It is free to refer to any individual which is not referred to within its governing category. It is not bound by the c-commanding argument. This situation can be found in the aforementioned sentence: Mary like me.

S-Structure: COMP [Mary -s like me ] The subject NP commands the object NP S is the governing category of me V-c-commands me Mary and me are not coindexed NPs The anaphor is free. It is not bound. Therefore, no binding occurs.

In the following example, the subject of the sentence is assigned a theta role by INFL. What used to be called Modal, Aux, Tense, etc. is now referred to as the category of inflection (INFL or I). Just as N is the head of NP, V is the head of VP, P is the head of PP, it follows that INFL is the head of a sentence or IP (inflectional phrase). The INFL in the governing category (sentence) is marked for tense (-s). However, INFL in the embedded sentence is not marked for tense. In traditional grammars, tense is defined as finite time. It is limited time such as time in the past, present, or future. When time is not limited, it becomes non-finite. This is where the term infinitive comes from. It means non-finite. Nevertheless, when INFL is not marked for tense as evidenced in the embedded sentence, the verb form emerges as an infinitival form.

The next area of investigation that merits consideration is the Minimalist Theory.  

Bibliography

Chomsky, Noam. (1993). Lectures on Government Binding: The Pisa Lectures. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Haegeman, Liliane. (1994). Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.