In response to a question I got over email, let me just give a couple of examples of evaluating Binding Theory satisfaction and violations.<\/p>\n
For Binding Theory, the thing to keep in mind is that binding only goes one direction, from higher in the tree to lower in the tree. For the most part, things that are further left in an English sentence are higher in the tree than things that are further right, although it is more complicated when there is a larger constituent on the left (like John’s mother<\/em>).<\/p>\n Specifically, a node A binds a node B when A c-commands B and they share an index<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So, in something like Johni<\/sub> told Mary that hei<\/sub> saw himselfi<\/sub><\/em> we have three things that share the index i. There are no larger constituents to worry about here. The binding relations are:<\/p>\n So, everything binds to the right. (Though, keep in mind, binding really<\/em> depends on c-command, not just being to the right. See the second example below).<\/p>\n Then, to evaluate Binding Theory, you look at each one in turn.<\/p>\n A more complicated example would be one like: Hisi<\/sub> mother thinks Johni<\/sub> is a genius<\/em>.<\/p>\n And, of course, these results are what we want, since both sentences are grammatical.<\/p>\n One last example, this one is not good: *Johni<\/sub> saw himi<\/sub><\/em>.<\/p>\n In response to a question I got over email, let me just give a couple of examples of evaluating Binding Theory satisfaction and violations. For Binding Theory, the thing to keep in mind is that binding only goes one direction, from higher in the tree to lower in the tree. For the most part, things …<\/p>\n\n
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