Anaphoric Relations in Jakaltek

This paper presents an LFG analysis of anaphoric co-referential relations in Jakaltek (Kanjobalan branch of the Mayan family), centred on the proposition that the general anaphoric co-indexing system of Jakaltek is based on structure sharing triggered by the absence of otherwise obligatory noun classifiers in the clause. As such, the Jakaltek data present an example of a language where anaphoric co-reference operates not on a semantic level through the co-indexing and hence 'binding' of two independent elements, but rather on a syntactic functional level, through the unification of f-structures. It therefore presents evidence of a different locus altogether for co-referentiality of anaphora, one subject not to rules pertaining to binding, but rather rules constraining functional control.