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Such: Binding and the pro-adjective

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Conclusion

The facts aboutsuch, then, indicate not just thatsuch is a pro-adjective, but also that binding conditions apply broadly to pro-ADJs and pro-CNs, as well as to a wide range of pro-arguments. If this is true, the CN binding process accomplished by rules (40) and (41) might better be expressed in a system that uses a Cooper (1979) store mechanism. In fact, Stump (p. 144) notes that this could easily be done. Meanings of the type of P n could be stored, just as NP meanings are, until an appropriate binding CN phrase was encountered. Binding conditions would simply require that a P n meaning not come out of storage until the derivation had emerged from its governing category. The behavior of the pro-adjectivesuch suggests that an expression of any category, if it is legitimately translatable as a variable, may be a fullfledged proform; many principles and mechanisms described to account for the widely studied pronouns in fact apply to nonargument categories.

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I am very grateful to David Dowty for the generous amounts of advice he gave me on earlier drafts of this paper. In addition, I would like to thank Jim Collins, Jeff Kaplan, Nikki Barrett Keach, Marcia Linebarger, Louis Mangione, Gary Milsark, Barbara Partee, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on some earlier drafts. Any remaining errors are, of course, mine alone. My thanks also go to Marie-Cline Fauve, Monika Gutsche, Ursula Hahn, Gary Milsark, Jean Lowenstamm, Gwendolyn Roget, Angela Wahlgren, and Juergen Weissenborn for help with German and French.

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Siegel, M.E.A. Such: Binding and the pro-adjective. Linguist Philos 17, 481–497 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00985832

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