Another question I got is how one determines whether a syntactic object “is bound with anything.”
I do want to make a clarification point here: there is an error in the question, and it’s actually something that often seems to be confusing to people. But binding is asymmetric. Even if X binds Y, you can’t suppose that Y also binds X. Things are not “bound with” each other, nor do you say X and Y “are bound” if either X binds Y or Y binds X. It’s a one-directional thing. X binds Y, Y is bound by X.1
But as for the question itself, the way you can tell by definition whether one thing binds another is to see whether X c-commands Y and then see if X and Y both have the same index.
Another way to answer that question is in fact to use Binding Theory and possible meanings—probably the safest way to do this is by checking judgments about Principle C: if you put “he” in for X and “John” in for Y and it’s ungrammatical (but would be fine if Y were “Mary”), then X almost certainly binds Y. That is:
Xi introduced Yi to Zi.
X binds Y and X binds Z, and Y binds Z.
If you put “He” in for X and “John” in for Y, it’s bad.
*Hei introduced Johni to Z.
But it’s fine with “Mary”:
Hei introduced Maryj to Z.
Similarly:
*Hei introduced Y to Johni.
Hei introduced Y to Maryj.
*X introduced himi to Johni.
X introduced himi to Maryj.
1 It is conceptually possible for X to bind Y and Y to simultaneously bind X if X and Y c-command each other— that is, if they are sisters. This situation will never arise, though. The only such combination Binding Theory would allow would be two anaphors combined together (“himself himself”) and you couldn’t Merge them together to form a larger object because it wouldn’t check any features or satisfy the Hierarchy of Projections. So, for all practical purposes, if X binds Y, Y does not bind X.
I came across a quick question from the previous midterm exam for Fall 2006 on binding theory. The sentence in question was “*She(i) convinced Mary(i) that John likes herself(i).” The question asked was which principle was NOT being violated. I originally thought that all principles were violated, but the correct answer was Principle B (pronouns must be free in its binding domain).
Why is this so?
Thank you!
The way to work this out is to just look at each of the noun phrases individually. You can kind of disregard “John” since I didn’t put an index on that one. Just to maintain the suspense, I’ll start at the end and work backwards.
First, consider “herself(i)”. It’s an anaphor and so it is subject to Principle A. That requires that it be bound within its binding domain. It is bound both by “She(i)” and “Mary(i)”, and its binding domain is the lower clause “(that) John likes herself(i)”. Since “She(i)” and “Mary(i)” cannot assist in satisfying Principle A (they are too far away), the sentence violates Principle A.
Then, consider “Mary(i)”. It’s an r-expression and so it is subject to Principle C. That requires that it be free, not bound at all. Yet, “She(i)” binds “Mary(i)”, so the sentence violates Principle C.
Lastly consider “She(i)”. It’a a pronoun and so it is subject to Principle B. That requires that it be free within its binding domain. The binding domain is the clause (so basically, the whole sentence), but there is nothing that c-commands “She(i)”, it’s at the top. So, since nothing c-commands “She(i)” certainly nothing binds it. And so, “She(i)” is free as required by Principle B, and the sentence satisfies Principle B. Remember here that binding is asymmetrical, so it doesn’t matter what “She(i)” c-commands, it matters what c-commands “She(i)”, and nothing c-commands “She(i)” so nothing could possibly bind it.
Hope this helps!