Outside-in Binding of Reflexives in Insular Scandinavian

Tania E. Strahan

Abstract

Proceedings of LFG09; CSLI Publications On-line

This paper looks at the standard approach to long-distance reflexives within the Lexical-Functional Grammar framework, which defines the binding relation between a reflexive and its non-local antecedent by prescribing the type of syntactic elements which must and must not occur along the path from the reflexive to its antecedent. Evidence from the Insular Scandinavian languages suggests that the binding relation should be expressed at least partially as a constraint on the path from the antecedent to the reflexive. In other words, I suggest that long-distance reflexives in Icelandic and Faroese are governed by outside-in functional uncertainty, not purely inside-out functional uncertainty, as is standardly assumed.