Binding at the syntax-information structure interface

This article argues for a cartographic analysis of binding, which preserves a syntactic approach in terms of c-command and incorporates information structure. We claim that an extensive account of the binding effects must integrate a sentence structural configuration where Topic always projects at the left periphery of the clause. This hypothesis accounts for the same connectivity effects in specificational pseudoclefts and reverse pseudoclefts as Heycock and Kroch’s (2002) analysis, as well as for those that remain unexplained in their work. Moreover, our proposal adequately deals with a vast array of binding cases which are not accounted for by standard Binding Theory. Keywords: topic; cartography; connectivity effects; pseudoclefts; binding