On the Nature of Referential Dependencies

Abstract

The study of referential dependencies(binding and coreference) has a long history in generative grammar since the first theories were born in the early 1980s. A widely accepted but still criticized theory is connected to Tanya Reinhart (1983; 1993), whose view influenced many and gave a solid foundation for other theories to be built on. I have chosen Reinhart's theory as a point of departure and I am going to show how her theory inspired other linguists to examine and criticize it and also to incorporate it into their own theory and thus develop it further.