Submitted By: Sumbal Islam.
Submitted To: Sir Sohaib.
Subject: Morphology and Syntax.
Roll Number: 5758.
Topic: GOVERNMENT BINDING THEORY.
Government and binding theory is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the
tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s.
This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in the Minimalist
Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, and this theory is now widely used by linguists
all around the world.
The name refers to two central sub theories of the theory government and binding.
Government
It concerns the application of grammatical case (a grammatical category that shows the
relationship of a noun or pronoun in a sentence).
Binding
The manner of which anaphors, pronouns and other pro-forms are distributed.
In other words, GBT describes the conditions and structural relations between nouns.
Nouns Involved
Anaphors:
Myself, herself, himself, itself etc.
Pronouns:
You, I, me, him, she, her etc.
Re-expressions:
(1) Proper names (Harry, Peter, Lilly etc)
(2) Common nouns ( cat, tree, telephone etc)
BINDING THEORY consists of 3 principles which are Principle A, Principle B and Principle C.
Principle A
An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain / the same clause as its antecedent.
For example : John (i) sees himself (i).
In other words the They are co-indexed/connected with (i) and therefore the anaphor 'himself'
is referred to John. anaphor needs to attach itself to something within the binding domain for it
to have meaning.
Principle B
A pronoun must be free in its binding domain /the same clause.
For example: John (i) sees him (i).
They are NOT connected with the same indexation (i)=/=(j) and therefore, the pronoun 'him' is
referred to someone else and not John.
Principle C
An R-expression must be free.
For example: John (i) told Mary (j) that he (i) was
tired.
John does not need to be bounded to anything in order to have a meaning, although 'he' is
bound to it, same applies to Mary. This is because John and Mary already has a meaning in the
real world outside of this sentence. However, "he" needs to be bound to its antecedent John in
order to have a meaning.
Let's take some other examples,
(A) Mary (i) saw her (i).
(B) Mary (i) saw herself (i).
(C) Herself (i) saw Peter (i).
(D) Mary (i) saw Mary (i).
Principle A: An anaphor must me bound in its binding domain /the same clause. In example C:
"Herself (i) saw Peter (i).
The anaphor 'herself' is not bounded to Mary. Therefore, this sentence is ungrammatical due
to the violation of Principle A.
Principle B: A pronoun must be free in its binding domain /the same clause. In example A:
"Mary (i) saw her (i)"
The pronoun "her" is not free and is bounded to Mary. Therefore, this sentence is
ungrammatical due to the violation of principle B.
Principle C: An R-expression must be free. In example D:
"Mary (i) saw Mary (i)"
Mary is bounded to Mary. Remember, R-expressions do not need to bound itself to anything
because it already has its own meaning in the real world (outside of the sentence). Therefore
this sentence is ungrammatical due to the violation of Principle C.
ULTIMATELY,
Example B:
"Mary (i) saw herself (i)"
Is the only one that has not violated the three principles and therefore, it is an acceptable and
grammatical sentence because the anaphora "herself" is a pronoun that is bounded and Mary is
not bounded to anything too.
Why do we have to learn about this theory?
Learning about GBT will help you to:
(1) Explore the internal development system of language from the perspective of cognitive due
to the emphasis on the Universal Grammar system of principles.
(2) Interpret many language phenomenon in order to understand the language nature.
(3) Be aware of the modified rules and using the rules from GBT will ease everything since
there are not many of rule system as Chomsky proposed to limit the types of rules in GBT.
Although this theory has its own limitation as well whereby it still contains many rules even
after the modification and it disregards language's social function knowing about the rule
system helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and
precise.
The End.