Greek Anaphora in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

The Homeric and Classical Greek systems of referentially dependent pronouns support an approach to binding and anaphoric reference which characterizes pronouns by two cross-classifying features, which specify the maximal domain in which their antecedent must be located, and whether they can overlap in reference with a coargument (Kiparsky 2002). By treating reflexivity as a special case of referential dependency, this approach predicts a class of referentially dependent non-reflexive anaphors, or discourse anaphors, whose characteristic is that they need not have a structural antecedent but can serve as reflexives in contexts where a dedicated reflexive is unavailable. This class is instantiated in the Greek clitic anaphors (sic)omicron, (sic), omicron iota, mu iota nu It also predicts a class of reflexive pronouns which must be disjoint in reference from a coargument, attested in Homeric Greek as the bare reflexive sic-. Greek also gives some support to the Blocking principle, which dictates the use of the most restricted pronoun available in a given context. The proposal is compared to the well-known theory of Reinhart & Reuland (1993) on the basis of Greek as well as Germanic (Swedish, German, Dutch, Frisian, Old English), and is shown to provide a better answer to the challenge raised by Evans& Levinson (2009).