Forms of address, performative prefixes, and the syntax-pragmatics interface

Forms of address must be pronominal in English but can be either pronominal or nominal in Vietnamese. I propose to analyze this fact as a parametric difference: the two languages choose different ways to implement one and the same general preference principle. This principle is Rule I, which favors binding over coreference. For English, Rule I compares bound and free expressions. For Vietnamese, Rule I compares bound and free pronouns. The analysis crucially relies on the hypothesis that speech acts are represented in the syntax.