Anaphor

An anaphor is an element which depends for its reference on the reference of another element.

In binding theory, anaphor is an element which must be A-bound by an antecedent within its binding domain.

Examples

Himself in (a) is an anaphor with John as its antecedent. The ill-formedness of (b) and c is due to the lack of a proper antecedent: himself does not agree in person features with I in (b), and John is outside the binding domain in (c).

   (a)	John hates himself.
   (b)  *I hate himself.
   (c)  *John says that I hate himself.

Comment

Traces of NP-movement are also considered as anaphors.

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Chomsky, Noam A. 1986. Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use. Praeger, New York.
• Chomsky, Noam A. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht:Foris.
• Fiengo, R. and R. May. 1994. Indices and identity. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.