Pronoun Binding and Reflexivity in Kildin Saami

Abstract

The article investigates the interpretation of two types of pronouns in Kildin Saami (Uralic, Northwestern Russia). We show that the interpretation of the pronouns s?n and iž’es’ as coreferential (strict) or bound (sloppy) under VP-ellipsis and in the scope of only-DPs shows some unexpected patterns when compared to English or German. The observable facts are derived from the interaction of two independent factors. The lexical specification of s?n and iž’es’ as syntactically free or bound in their local binding domain, and an interpretive principle SYN-SEM-BIND, which forces (locally) syntactically bound pronouns to be interpreted as semantically bound. While the new principle accounts for all the observable facts, we also show that standard interpretive principles introduced for the analysis of pronouns in English do not.