Introduction

In this chapter, I shall turn from an examination of control in Chinese to a consideration of binding in the language. I shall concentrate on the treatment of long-distance reflexivisation within the GB framework. By long-distance reflexivisation is meant, roughly, the phenomenon whereby a reflexive may be bound outside its local domain.

Long-distance reflexivisation has been observed in a wide range of languages as genetically unrelated and structurally diverse as Chinese, Icelandic and Italian. In recent years, it has become a focus of attention in both syntactic and pragmatic theorising (e.g. Everaert 1986, Hellan & Christensen 1986, Y. Huang 1987, 1989, 1991a, Kuno 1987, Manzini & Wexler 1987, Sells 1987, Battistella 1989, Huang & Tang 1989, 1991, Tang 1989, Zribi-Hertz 1989, Battistella & Xu 1990, Cole, Hermon & Sung 1990, Hyams & Sigurjonsdottir 1990, Maling & Zaenen 1990, Katada 1991, Koster & Reuland 1991, Levinson 1991, Thomas 1991, Pollard & Sag 1992); it has represented a particularly fruitful testing ground for various hypotheses concerning the principles-and-parameters approach to generative syntax of a comparative nature on the one hand, and the interface and division of labour between syntax and pragmatics on the other.

While long-distance reflexivisation often requires language-specific constraints, it seems to display a number of distinguishing properties cross-linguistically, notably (i) long-distance reflexives allow an antecedent outside their local domain, (ii) long-distance reflexives allow only a subject antecedent, (iii) long-distance reflexives are morphologically simplex (Pica 1984, 1987, 1991, Faltz 1985) (but see section 4.2 below), and (iv) there is no complementary distribution between pronouns and long-distance reflexives (Reuland & Koster 1991: 10, Reinhart & Reuland 1991: 284).