Government and binding theory

Government and binding (GB, GBT ) is a t heory of synt ax and a phrase st ruct ure grammar in t he
t radit ion of t ransformat ional grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in t he 1980s.[1][2][3]
This t heory is a radical revision of his earlier t heories[4][5][6] and was lat er revised in The Minimalist
Program (1995)[7] and several subsequent papers, t he lat est being Three Factors in Language Design
(2005).[8] Alt hough t here is a large lit erat ure on government and binding t heory which is not writ t en
by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundat ional in set t ing t he research agenda.

The name refers t o t wo cent ral subt heories of t he t heory: government, which is an abst ract
synt act ic relat ion applicable, among ot her t hings, t o t he assignment of case; and binding, which
deals chiefly wit h t he relat ionships bet ween pronouns and t he expressions wit h which t hey are co-
referent ial. GB was t he first t heory t o be based on t he principles and paramet ers model of language,
which also underlies t he lat er development s of t he minimalist program.

Government

The main applicat ion of t he government relat ion concerns t he assignment of case. Government is
defined as follows:

A governs B if and only if

A is a governor and

A m-commands B and

no barrier int ervenes bet ween A and B.

Governors are heads of t he lexical cat egories (V, N, A, P) and t ensed I (T). A m-commands B if A
does not dominat e B and B does not dominat e A and t he first maximal projection of A dominat es B,
where t he maximal project ion of a head X is XP. This means t hat for example in a st ruct ure like t he
following, A m-commands B, but B does not m-command A:

In addit ion, barrier is defined as follows:[9] A barrier is any node Z such t hat
Z is a pot ent ial governor for B and

Z c-commands B and

Z does not c-command A

The government relat ion makes case assignment unambiguous. The t ree diagram below illust rat es
how DPs are governed and assigned case by t heir governing heads:

Anot her import ant applicat ion of t he government relat ion const rains t he occurrence and ident it y of
t races as t he Empt y Cat egory Principle requires t hem t o be properly governed.

Binding

Binding can be defined as follows:

An element α binds an element β if and only if α c-commands β, and α and β corefer.

Consider t he sent ence "Johni saw hisi mot her", which is diagrammed below using simple phrase
st ruct ure t rees.
The NP "John" c-commands "his" because t he first parent of t he NP, S, cont ains "his". "John" and "his"
are also coreferent ial (t hey refer t o t he same person), t herefore "John" binds "his".

On t he ot her hand, in t he ungrammat ical sent ence "*The mot her of Johni likes himself i", "John" does
not c-command "himself", so t hey have no binding relat ionship despit e t he fact t hat t hey corefer.

The import ance of binding is shown in t he grammat icalit y or ungrammat icalit y of t he following
sent ences:

1. *Johni saw himi.

2. Johni saw himself i.

3. *Himself i saw Johni.

4. *Johni saw Johni.

Binding is used, along wit h part icular binding principles, t o explain t he ungrammat icalit y of
st at ement s 1, 3, and 4. The applicable rules are called Binding Principle A, Binding Principle B, and
Binding Principle C.

Principle A: an anaphor (reflexive or reciprocal, such as "each ot her") must be bound in it s

governing cat egory (roughly, t he clause).

Since "himself" is not c-commanded by "John" in sent ence [3], Principle A is violat ed.

Principle B: a pronoun must be free (i.e., not bound) wit hin it s governing cat egory (roughly, t he
clause).

In sent ence [1], "him" is bound by "John", violat ing Principle B.

Principle C: an R-expression must be free (i.e., not bound). R-expressions (e.g. "t he dog" or "John")
are referent ial expressions: unlike pronouns and anaphora, t hey independent ly refer, i.e., pick out
ent it ies in t he world.

In sent ence [4], t he first inst ance of "John" binds t he second, violat ing Principle C.
Not e t hat Principles A and B refer t o "governing cat egories"—domains which limit t he scope of
binding. The definit ion of a governing cat egory laid out in Lectures on Government and Binding[1] is
complex, but in most cases t he governing cat egory is essent ially t he minimal clause or complex NP.

References

Notes

1. Chomsky, Noam (1993) [1981]. Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures . Mout on
de Gruyt er.

2. Chomsky, Noam (1982). Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and
Binding (ht t ps://archive.org/det ails/someconcept scons0000chom) . Linguist ic Inquiry
Monograph 6. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262530422.

3. Chomsky, Noam (1986). Barriers . Linguist ic Inquiry Monograph 13. MIT Press.

4. Chomsky, Noam (2002) [1957]. Syntactic Structures (Second ed.). Mout on de Gruyt er.

5. Chomsky, Noam (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press.

6. Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalizat ion (ht t p://babel.ucsc.edu/~hank/mrg.readings/

Chomsky1970_ Nominalizat ion.pdf) . In Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972).
The Hague: Mout on. Pages 11–61.

7. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. MIT Press.

8. Chomsky, Noam (2005). "Three Fact ors in Language Design" (ht t p://muse.jhu.edu/journals/linguis
t ic_ inquiry/v036/36.1chomsky.pdf) (PDF). Linguistic Inquiry. 36 (36): 1–22.
doi:10.1162/0024389052993655 (ht t ps://doi.org/10.1162%2F0024389052993655) .
S2CID 14954986 (ht t ps://api.semant icscholar.org/CorpusID:14954986) .

9. see "Minimalit y" in Haegeman 1994:163f.

Fur ther reading

Liliane Haegeman (1994). Introduction to Government and Binding Theory (Second Edit ion).
Blackwell.

External links

A st ep-by-st ep int roduct ion t o t he Government and Binding t heory of synt ax (ht t ps://mexico.sil.or
g/sit es/mexico/files/e002-int rogb.pdf)