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In this paper, reconstruction for Binding Principles A and C will be (re)considered in wh-slifting, a construction which appears to associate a wh-interrogative clause with a yes/no-interrogative clause, whose predicate typically selects propositions rather than questions. While the current view is that both binding principles bleed in wh-slifting, a thorough examination of Principle C and experimental pilot findings for Principle A reported here suggest the exact opposite conclusion: Binding Principles A and C do not bleed in wh-slifting. To the extent that this conclusion is valid, it favors the hypothesis that a wh-interrogative clause reconstructs to the complement position of a proposition-selecting predicate. This, in turn, raises non-trivial questions about the syntax and semantics of clausal complement selection, which we leave unanswered.

The relation of c-command (Reinhart 1976, 1983) is widely believed to be THE fundamental relation in syntax, underlying such diverse phenomena as coreference (the BINDING PRINCIPLES), scope and variable binding, syntactic movement, and so on. Precedence is generally held to be irrelevant. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Syntax does not involve c-command at all, but rather a much coarser notion of command, PHASE-COMMAND, where only phasal nodes matter, not every node in the tree. Precedence also plays an important role. The article argues this point in detail for the binding principles, and shows that the relation that is required is PRECEDE-AND-COMMAND (Langacker 1969, Jackendoff 1972, Lasnik 1976), where command is phase-command. It revisits Reinhart's arguments for c-command and against precedence, and shows that those arguments do not go through. Finally, precede-and-command does not need to be stipulated, but follows from a view of grammar and processing where sentences are built in a left-to-right fashion.

In many different domains of language acquisition, there exists an apparent learnability problem to which innate knowledge of some aspect of universal grammar (UG) has been proposed as a solution. The present article reviews these proposals in the core domains of (i) identifying syntactic categories, (ii) acquiring basic morphosyntax, (iii) structure dependence, (iv) subjacency, and (v) the binding principles. We conclude that, in each of these domains, the innate UG-specified knowledge posited does not, in fact, simplify the task facing the learner.

The present paper is a reassessment of the empirical and theoretical arguments presented by some of main minimalist accounts for binding. Some if these accounts assume that the binding principles are conditions on LF representations, others argue that they are derived by narrow syntax computations. Despite that, I present some observations indicating that there is not yet a satisfactory minimalist account for binding. The amounted evidence indicates that binding is derivational. However, pragmatics seems also engaged in building coreferentiality.  

In this response to commentators on our target article ‘Child language acquisition: Why universal grammar doesn’t help’, we argue that the fatal flaw in most UG-based approaches to acquisition is their focus on describing the adult end-state in terms of a particular linguistic formalism. As a consequence, such accounts typically neglect to link acquisition to the language that the learner actually hears, instead assuming that she is able, by means usually unspecified, to perceive her input in terms of high-level theoretical abstractions.

Single-component molecular conductors exhibit a strong connection to the Dirac electron system. The formation of Dirac cones in single-component molecular conductors relies on (1) the crossing of HOMO and LUMO bands and (2) the presence of nodes in the HOMO–LUMO couplings. In this study, we investigated the possibility of Dirac cone formation in two single-component molecular conductors derived from nickel complexes with extended tetrathiafulvalenedithiolate ligands, [Ni(tmdt)2] and [Ni(btdt)2], using tight-biding models and first-principles density-functional theory (DFT) calculations. The tight-binding model predicts the emergence of Dirac cones in both systems, which is associated with the stretcher bond type molecular arrangement. The DFT calculations also indicate the formation of Dirac cones in both systems. In the case of [Ni(btdt)2], the DFT calculations, employing a vdW-DF2 functional, reveal the formation of Dirac cones near the Fermi level in the nonmagnetic state after structural optimization. Furthermore, the DFT calculations, by utilizing the range-separated hybrid functional, confirm the antiferromagnetic stability in [Ni(btdt)2], as observed experimentally.

The grammatical constraints on anaphoric binding, known as binding principles, are observed to form a classical square of oppositions. These constraints are then analysed as the effect of phase quantifiers over reference markers in grammatical obliqueness hierarchies, and the resulting phase quantifiers are shown to be organised in a square of logical duality. The impact of this result on the distinction between quantificational and referential nominals as well as on the logical foundations of the semantics of nominals in general is discussed.

The binding theory of transformational generative grammar refers to a selected class of phrase structure positions (argument and nonargument positions), a relation of relative prominence among them (c‐command), a typology of the elements that enter into binding relations (anaphors, pronominals, referring expressions), and designated regions of phrase structure within which the binding relations hold for these elements. This chapter begins with a preliminary version of the binding theory which, although it is inadequate, illustrates certain essential concepts of a binding theory within the architecture of lexical‐functional grammar (LFG). Notwithstanding the inadequacies of this theory, the exercise of reformulating it in the present framework is useful. For this binding theory it is assumed that there is an index attribute whose value determines coindexing relations. Despite its textbook status, the familiar binding theory is problematic. One reason for its inadequacy is typological.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Using Computational Tools to Model and Predict Host‐Guest Binding Using Caveat to Identify Potential Scaffold Structures from Virtual Molecular Databases‐A Computer‐Based Bond Vector Matching Approach Hostdesigner‐A Program for Receptor Design Concept‐A Receptor Building Program Other Computer‐Based Design Methods Summary and Outlook References

As Epstein (1992) observes, the principle of Economy of Derivation (cf. Chomsky 1991, 1993, 1994) yields an interesting consequence with respect to Ā-chain formation in English: it predicts that wh-phrases cannot optionally undergo topicalization, scrambling, or wh-movement at S-Structure in multiple questions. However, we show that wh-phrases can undergo optional movement under well-defined circumstances in typologically different languages, in constructions involving partial wh-movement, wh-imperatives, wh-pied-piping, wh-scrambling, and wh-reconstruction. In view of this, we contend that illicit cases of optional wh-movement should not be excluded by a transderivational economy constraint, and we develop an alternative analysis in terms of the Principle of Unambiguous Binding, proposed in Müller and Sternefeld 1993 as a general constraint blocking improper movement.