A Study of Reflexive Binding: a cross-linguistic approach

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to identify the distribution of reflexive pronouns in English, Korean, and Myanmar and to cross-linguistically characterize them, by exploring the similarities and differences of the binding effects with respect to orientation and locality. There have been a lot of research on binding of reflexive pronoun of English and Korean, but there are few studies of the binding characteristics of reflexive pronoun in Myanmar. Although there are considerable variations among the languages, it is surprising to see that there are similarities as well. In order to accomplish the purpose of this thesis, the general characteristics of reflexive pronoun binding will be discussed under the basic notions and terms of Chomsky's (1981, 1986) standard principles of the governing category and c-command in the framework of the generative grammar. The Myanmar reflexive pronouns will be proposed to be polymorphemic and need the c-command requirement of the antecedent like English and Korean reflexive pronouns in their local domain. It will also be proposed that the head ‘kou (self)’ of the reflexive in Myanmar undergoes raising at LF, such that it can exhibits only the subject orientation. This study shows that the differences of anaphoric binding effects rely on the morphological structure of the reflexive pronouns in languages.