From temporal anchoring to long distance anaphors

This paper investigates the distribution of long distance anaphors in two typologically unrelated languages, Italian and Chinese, and shows that in spite of the superficial differences they are ruled by the same grammatical principles. It is proposed that the properties determining the temporal location of events at the interface level—i.e., Sequence of Tense—also allow the identification of the antecedent of long distance anaphors. The paper focuses on so-called blocking effects—namely, the impossibility for a long distance anaphor to extend its binding domain beyond certain elements, such as an indicative verbal form in Italian or an indexical or context-related item in Chinese. I also consider backward binding phenomena, and show how they might follow from the same generalizations. The paper investigates the role of the speaker and the bearer of attitude in the sentence, and capitalizing on the proposals by Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, 2001a, 2001b, 2004a, 2004b) on Sequence of Tense, argues that they are syntactically realized and might act as binders and blockers both for temporal anchoring and for binding.

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