Two Types of Pronouns and Variable Binding

Abstract

It is well known that personal pronouns in Japanese such as kare ‘he’ and kanozyo ‘she’, unlike their English counterparts, cannot be construed as bound variables in logical form. The purpose of this article is to argue that this cross-linguistic difference is due to the difference in syntactic categories. English personal pronouns are determiners (Postal 1969), exemplifying what will be referred to as D-PRONOUNS, and can be construed as bound variables, whereas Japanese personal pronouns are nouns, exemplifying what will be referred to as N-PRONOUNS, and cannot be so construed. I argue that this follows from a general condition on binding that applies only to functional items, and not to lexical ones. I provide empirical and conceptual support for this hypothesis on the basis of the behavior of such elements as articles, determiners, and demonstrative pronouns as well as that of personal pronouns.

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