Long-Distance Binding in Psych-Predicates

Abstract

This paper is concerned with anti-local, long-distance anaphora, particularly in psych-predicate contexts. We will examine how the phenomenon is related to logophoricity and de se on one hand and to thematic hierarchy and Topic candidacy hierarchy on the other. The binding theory developed in Chomsky (1981) does not account for the non-clause-bounded reflexives that occur in various languages such as Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Latin, Italian, etc. in terms of purely structural conditions A and B of the theory. We will consider if the phenomenon can be explained in terms of semantic, cognitive and discourse factors such as topicality. However, we will try to see how such factors tend to be related to structural conditions at the same time. We further investigate the possibility of applying the notion of ranking of the relevant constraints in Optimality Theory.