Grammar of binding in the languages of the world: Unity versus diversity

Abstract

Cole, Hermon, and Yanti (2015) present a number of far-reaching conclusions about language universals on the basis of their study of the anaphoric systems of the Austronesian languages of Indonesia. The pre- sent contribution critically assesses these conclusions. It reports a further set of data, and shows that con- tra to what these authors argue, the systems they discuss can be straightforwardly accounted for by a simple set of universal principles plus properties of the vocabulary of the languages involved. I conclude this article with some remarks on acquisition.