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Government and binding (GB,GBT) is a theory ofsyntax and aphrase structure grammar in the tradition oftransformational grammar developed principally byNoam Chomsky in the 1980s.[1][2][3] This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories[4][5][6] and was later revised inThe Minimalist Program (1995)[7] and several subsequent papers, the latest beingThree Factors in Language Design (2005).[8] Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda.
The name refers to two central subtheories of the theory:government, which is an abstract syntactic relation applicable, among other things, to the assignment ofcase; andbinding, which deals chiefly with the relationships betweenpronouns and the expressions with which they areco-referential. GB was the first theory to be based on theprinciples and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the minimalist program.
The main application of thegovernment relation concerns the assignment ofcase. Government is defined as follows:
Agoverns B if and only if
Governors are heads of thelexical categories (V, N, A, P) andtensed I (T). Am-commands B if A does notdominate B and B does not dominate A and the firstmaximal projection of A dominates B, where the maximal projection of a head X is XP. This means that for example in a structure like the following, Am-commands B, but B does notm-command A:
In addition,barrier is defined as follows:[9] A barrier is any node Z such that
The government relation makes case assignment unambiguous. The tree diagram below illustrates how DPs are governed and assigned case by their governing heads:
Another important application of the government relation constrains the occurrence and identity oftraces as theEmpty Category Principle requires them to be properly governed.
Binding can be defined as follows:
Consider the sentence "Johni saw hisi mother", which is diagrammed below using simplephrase structure trees.
The NP "John" c-commands "his" because the first parent of the NP, S, contains "his". "John" and "his" are also coreferential (they refer to the same person), therefore "John" binds "his".
On the other hand, in the ungrammatical sentence "*The mother of Johni likes himselfi", "John" does not c-command "himself", so they have no binding relationship despite the fact that they corefer.
The importance of binding is shown in the grammaticality or ungrammaticality of the following sentences:
Binding is used, along with particular binding principles, to explain the ungrammaticality of statements 1, 3, and 4. The applicable rules are called Binding Principle A, Binding Principle B, and Binding Principle C.
Since "himself" is not c-commanded by "John" in sentence [3], Principle A is violated.
In sentence [1], "him" is bound by "John", violating Principle B.
In sentence [4], the first instance of "John" binds the second, violating Principle C.
Note that Principles A and B refer to "governing categories"—domains which limit the scope of binding. The definition of a governing category laid out inLectures on Government and Binding[1] is complex, but in most cases the governing category is essentially the minimal clause or complex NP.
Notes
Further reading
