A Note on Japanese Anaphoric R-expressions

Abstract

In examples in (1), the second occurrence of the R-expression is bound by the first occurrence of the same R-expression. In (1a), the object R-expression Gye’eihlly “Mike” is bound by Gye’eihlly in the subject position. In (1b), bxuuhahz “priest” in the embedded object position is bound by the identical R-expression in the matrix subject. Lasnik (1991) argues, based on the same kind of data in Thai and other languages, that Binding Condition C does not hold for those languages which allow bound R-expressions. On the other hand, Lee (2003) claims that examples in (1) are not exceptions to Binding Condition C. Lee argues that these bound R-expressions are actually bound variables which are spelled out as overt copies (bound copies), and have anaphoric status; they are not pure R-expressions and are not constrained by Binding Condition C. R-expressions which are bound by their coarguments such as (1a) are called “local