In
linguistics,
binding refers to the distribution of
anaphoric elements (pronouns and other
pro-forms). A pronoun (a "bindee") usually has an
antecedent (a "binder") in context. The goal of binding theory is to identify the syntactic relationship that can or must hold between a given pronoun or noun and its antecedent (or postcedent), e.g.
Johni said hei would help vs.
*Hei said Johni would help (the second sentence is not possible if
he is intended to mean
John). The idea that there should be a specialized, coherent theory dealing with this sort of phenomena originated in work in
Transformational Grammar in the 1970s. This work culminated in
Government and Binding Theory in the 1980s. The binding theory that became established at that time is still considered a reference point, though its validity is no longer accepted. Many theories of
syntax now have a subtheory that addresses binding phenomena. These phenomena exist in all languages, although the behavior of binding can vary in interesting and nuanced ways across languages, even across languages that are closely related.