Pragmatic reduction of the Binding Conditions revisited

In an earlier article (Levinson, 1987 b), I raised the possibility that a Gricean theory of implicature might provide a systematic partial reduction of the Binding Conditions; the briefest of outlines is given in Section 2.1 below but the argumentation will be found in the earlier article. In this article I want, first, to show how that account might be further justified and extended, but then to introduce a radical alternative. This alternative uses the same pragmatic framework, but gives an account better adjusted to some languages. Finally, I shall attempt to show that both accounts can be combined by taking a diachronic perspective. The attraction of the combined account is that, suddenly, many facts about long-range reflexives and their associated logophoricity fall into place. I shall dub my earlier reduction the 'A-first' account; the argument is recapitulated in Section 2, but the essential characteristic is that Principle A of the Binding Conditions is taken to be grammatically specified, as in the GB accounts, while Principles B and C are then reduced to pragmatics (partly in terms of pragmatic 'oppositions' to Principle A patterns). I have come to see a number of internal problems with this account (which I shall mention below), but the main challenge seems to be that in many languages reflexives and pronouns are not always in complementary distribution, and this is especially clear in languages with LONG-RANGE REFLEXIVES. In addition there are languages with no reflexives at all, and yet with Principle B-like patterns of pronominal anaphora, and this obviously poses a problem for an account that makes Principle B-like patterns parasitic on Principle A. These difficulties motivate consideration of a radical alternative, a 'B-first' account, which takes Principle B to be basic (but pragmatic in character) and reduces Principle Aand C-type patterns of anaphora to a parasitic (and pragmatic) status. It turns out that the B-first account is essential for some