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3. Binding Theory
3.1. Binding Theory and expletives
It has traditionally been noticed that a theory of expletives poses an immediate problem
for Binding Theory (BT): if the expletive is coindexed with the Argument it is linked to, there
should be a BT violation. There are several solutions that have been proposed for this problem.
The classical solution (basically stemming from Chomsky's (1982) account for subject inversion)
is co-superscripting: The link between the expletive and the Argument would not be co-
subscripting, which is the device used for binding dependencies, but co-superscripting, which is,
by assumption, irrelevant for BT.
It is clear that a theory of co-superscripting does not fit into a theory of CHAINS, if we
reasonably assume that members of CHAINS should be uniformly coindexed in the same way:
otherwise the concept of CHAIN would hardly be a unitary concept. On the other hand, as
argued in Borer (1986) a theory having a single coindexing device is preferable, if tenable, to one
using two different types of indexes.
In Chomsky (1986-b), a solution is suggested with a single indexing device, consisting in
simply stating that Expletive/Argument binding relations do not count for BT:
(30) Binding of an Argument by a non-Argument is not subject to Binding Theory.
Obviously, this is a mere stipulation of no independent interest. Later in the same book,
another solution is suggested: expletives are replaced at LF by the Argument they are linked to:
if BT holds at LF, violations of BT by expletives are overridden:
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