Anaphora and Merge

Abstract

The ultimate goal of this paper is to show that binding can be captured in terms of Merge and Transfer. It is well-known that the phi-deficiency view of anaphora is taken to be the predominant view in the Minimalist literature and that an anaphor is assumed to be a nominal that lacks one or more phi-features. We examine the phi-deficiency view of anaphora and argue that animate features, phi-features, and R-features are necessary. Korean ku-casin “he-self” and English himself underspecified for R-features are subject/object/indirect object-oriented and are strictly local anaphors. On the other hand, Korean caki “self” underspecified for phi-features is subject/object-oriented and both locally and non-locally bound. Korean caki-casin “self-self” underspecified for both features (phi-features and R-features) are subject-oriented and strictly a local anaphor. Finally, within the Minimalist work, we show that binding can be captured by animate features, phi-features, R-features, Merge, and Transfer. Transfer provides the governing category and semantic computations, by which binding can be captured.