ABSTRACT
N.Chomsky’s term in Government and Binding theory for positions in the tree diagram that can be assigned a theta role ( theta criterion) independently of any particular lexical item. Therefore, subject and object positions are argument positions, but the COMP position is not. The difference between argument positions and non-argument positions is especially important in binding theory, where there is an important distinction between anaphora and so-called variables. Anaphoras have a local antecedent in an argument position, whereas variables have a local antecedent in a non-argument position. Correspondingly, one differentiates between A-binding and A-bar-binding.
