Subject-oriented and non Subject-oriented Long-distance Anaphora : an Integrated Approach

We discuss data showing that, unlike other long-distance anaphors widely documented in the literature (e.g. ziji from Chinese, caki from Korean, zibun, from Japanese, etc.), the Portuguese ele prOprio is not subject-oriented. This supports a reformulation of Principle Z, encompassing subject-oriented and non subject-oriented long-distance anaphora, which shows up as the fourth binding principle. The striking internal congruence of the resulting four principle based Binding Theory cogently makes it apparent that the binding symmetries are far more richer than the problematic single distributional symmetry between anaphors and pronouns that has been continuously assumed to hold by most of the research of the last three decades. We also discuss how the data involving the Portuguese long-distance anaphor add to the growing evidence that the generalization assumed in mainstream GB approaches about the universal correlation between "simplex" anaphors, longdistance anaphora, subject-orientedness and intermediate blocking effects is most likely not to be empirically grounded. 1. Principle Z revisited Long-distance anaphors have been a major focus of inquiry for mainstream three principle based theories of binding. Roughly, such items must get their interpretation from antecedents occurring either inside or outside the relevant local domain. This constraint is not accounted for by any of the three "classic" binding principles, set up mostly on the basis of empirical evidence from the English language in HPSG terms: Principle A requires o-binding by an antecedent occurring in the same local domain; Principle B has to do with o-freeness; and Principle C concerns expressions with non-dependent interpretation. Current analyses tackling this issue have proposed extra binding principles for coping with languages exhibiting this kind of unbounded obligatory o-binding phenomena. This is the case of Xue, Pollard and Sag's 1994 proposal concerning the Chinese expression ziji: (1) Zhangsani zhidao [Lisij renwei [Wangwuk zui xihuan zijii 6/0. Zhangsan know Lisi think Wangwu most like self 'Zhangsani knows [that Lisij thinks [thatWangwuk likes himj,j/himselfk most]]'.