Binding without identity: Towards a unified semantics for bound and exempt anaphors

Abstract

Expressions such as English himself are interpreted as locally bound anaphors in certain syntactic environments and are exempt from the binding conditions in others. This article provides a unified semantics for himself in both of these uses. Their difference is reduced to the interaction with the syntactic environment. The semantics is based on an extension of the treatment of pronominals in variable-free semantics. The adoption of variable-free semantics is inspired by the existence of proxy-readings, which motivate an analysis based on Skolem functions. It is explained why certain anaphor types allow proxy-readings whereas others do not. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.