Reflexivity without reflexives?

Abstract

What prevents pronominals from being locally bound? Does this a) reflect an intrinsic property of pronominals (Chomsky 1981), is it b) a relative (economy) effect, that only shows up where there is a more dedicated competitor (see from different perspectives, Safir 2004, Boeckx, Hornstein and Nunes 2007, Levinson 2000), does it c) have a semantic basis as in Schlenker (2005), or does it d) follow from general conditions on agree based chains, and reflexive predicates (Reuland 2011a)? To help resolve this issue, we investigate Khanty (Uralic, spoken in Northwest Siberia), a language that is reported to allow locally bound pronominals (Nikolaeva 1995), and assess whether it in fact does have them, and, which factors come into play when local binding obtains.