Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Chomsky's (1981) i-within-i condition (also written as i/i) blocks co-indexation of a phrase with one of its proper subconstituents:
(I) *[…a1…]i
We argue here that the i-within-i condition as stated in (I) and used in current work is both empirically inadequate and theoretically incoherent.2 Many of the data that the i-within-i condition has been taken to account for should, instead, be accounted for by a range of unrelated constraints. However, a condition on the interpretation of the reference of free pronominals and anaphors - which we state as a definition of circular chains - is, in fact, motivated and will adequately account for the data involving referential circularity that have previously been accounted for with the i-within-i condition.