Free Variable Economy

Several authors have recently argued that semantic interpretation is subject to economy constraints. In particular, Fox (1999) argued that the interpretation of pronouns is subject to binding economy, which favors local binding over non-local binding. The present paper points out a problem for binding economy. The aim, then, is to see if this problem can be resolved in a conservative way, that is, preserving the general idea that interpretation is subject to economy constraints. The suggested solution is to consider a different economy criterion. The proposed constraint, free variable economy, disfavors free variables rather than non-local binding. It avoids the problem that binding economy runs into, and preserves the general idea that semantic interpretation is subject to economy constraints. 1 Economy and Semantic Interpretation Several authors have recently argued that semantic interpretation is subject to economy constraints (cf. Fox, 1999; Reinhart, 2006). The general idea is that one logical form is ungrammatical if there is an alternative logical form which is: 1. semantically equivalent 2. syntactically simpler / more economical To make this general idea more precise, we have to answer two questions: 1. When are two logical forms semantically equivalent? 2. When is one logical form simpler / more economical than another? In this paper, I will focus on the second question. More particularly, I will be concerned with a measure of economy, proposed by Fox (1999), which says that logical forms in which pronouns are bound locally are more economical than logical forms in which pronouns are bound non-locally. Fox has shown that the associated Arndt Riester & Torgrim Solstad (eds.): Proceedings of SuB13 , Stuttgart, 000–000.