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Some Remarks on the Government-Binding Theory and Anaphors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2008
Abstract
The Government-Binding theory cannot account for reflexives in Slavic languages. We may guess that the more a language differs from English with its quite rigid word-order, the worse are the predictions made by the theory.
One cannot exclude Slavic reflexives as non-anaphors in a non-arbitrary way while keeping the spirit of Chomsky et al. The Slavic reflexives behave “as they ought to” in tensed clauses, too. An attempt to exclude them would also be another step on the self-destructive path that started by excluding the Japanese reflexives in order to cope with the facts clashing with the Government-Binding theory. Many interesting cases of English reflexives would also have to be ignored for the sake of the theory.
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