According to Binding Conditions A and B, anaphors and pronominals are in complementary distribution within a local domain. One of the fundamental questions about the Binding Conditions is how we can define the notion 'local domain'. Since Chomsky (2001, 2008) claimed that movement and the operation 'AGREE' are phase-bound, there have been many attempts to replace 'local domain' with 'phase'. After pointing out some problems with the previous phase-based approaches to binding such as Quicoli (2008) and Saito (2017, 2018a, 2018b), this study proposes that the local binding domain is a strong phase. Chomsky proposes that there are two types of vP: a strong vP and a weak vP, depending on whether or not v assigns an external theta role. By extending this idea to DP and CP, it is claimed that a phase is strong if the head of the phase discharges all the relevant features. The claim that the strong phase is the binding domain opens up the possibility that binding is an epiphenomenon that follows from ‘AGREE’ or movement.
1. Introduction
2. Previous Phase-Based Approaches
3. The Local Domain as a Strong Phase
4. Conclusion
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