The Binding Theory. Pronoun Reference in English and Turkish

Examination Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Tubingen, language: English, abstract: The primary research question addressed by this paper is: Is there a universally valid principle for pronoun reference in English and can we compare that principle to Turkish? Featherson and Sternefeld (2003) point out the significance of binding: Binding is more than only a subarea of linguistics dealing with pronouns and anaphors, as it provides more information about language than expected. The binding phenomena reveals several other aspects of the human language, such as its complexity and its dynamic interaction of syntax and context.

Since the pioneering Pisa Lectures on Government and Binding by Noam Chomsky (1981, 1986), it has commonly been assumed that a single theoretical apparatus, such as the Binding Theory, universally determines the interpretation and distribution of pronouns and anaphors in English. The Binding Theory proposed by Chomsky expresses a generalization about syntactic relationships by using three principles and has been criticized, refined and modified over the past few decades. In particular, the revision proposed by Moskovsky (2004) attempts to provide remarks and improvements for the existing version of Chomsky¿s classical Binding Theory. This is the reason why it is interesting to do more research on binding.