This project will investigate the nature of the syntactic processes that are available in natural language to encode interpretive dependencies between arguments. Its methodology is based on the conviction that given the state of the art, further insight can only be obtained by systematically exploring the amount of cross-linguistic variation in this domain, thus expanding the empirical basis that is currently available. Its goals are:
to systematically acquire facts about dependencies from a collection of languages that is representative of the existing variation among languages (in relation to the LOT NWO proposal for an investment subsidy for a typological data base) and to make these available to the linguistic community at large;
to complete a typology for the full range of pronominals and reflexives
to investigate how and why reflexivity of natural language predicates must be morpho-syntactically licensed;
to systematically explore the nature of the contrast between local and non-local binding;
to further explore the hypothesis that in a significant subclass of interpretive dependencies the preferred mechanism for their encoding is syntactic, and coincides with chain formation;
to develop a theory of dependencies capturing the cross-linguistic variation observed, contributing to the delimitation of what aspects of language are determined by syntax, as opposed to other cognitive processes (semantic or pragmatic).