reciprocals as subjects

Amiridze, Nino Nino.Amiridze at LET.UU.NL
Wed May 29 09:06:11 UTC 2002


Dear Jon Aske,

thank you for your message.

I agree with you that the reflexive as a subject in (1) and the same
reflexive as an object are different by interpretation. But I also think
that what is crucial in the subject use of burua as well as Georgian
reflexive tav- is that the interpretation of both is dependent on the
co-argument object phrase.

Sure it is not an antecedent but whatever we call it (postcedent/etc) there
is an anaphoric relation between the subject reflexives and the co-argument
object phrase.

In (1) the object pronoun is dropped but anyway the interpretation of neure
buruak in (1) is dependent on the interpretation of the pro-dropped 1st
person singular personal pronoun. As the translation shows neure buruak in
(1) refers to the things related to the referent of the pro-dropped phrase.

We could say that the reflexive as a subject does not refer to the whole but
only to the part/aspect/property of the referent of its post-cedent. But I
don't think this makes any harm to the anaphoric relation between the
co-arguments. There can be the same partial interpretation also in 'normal'
cases with reflexives as objects (cf. (2)). However it will be very hard to
say that there is no anaphoric relation between the reflexive and its
antecedent in (2):

(2)     John hit himself.

I agree that not every example of 'myself' is reflexive. It can be an
intensifier, for instance. But I don't think the subject uses of burua and
tav- are the cases of intensifiers. They are arguments of the verb not
adjuncts.

I would be interested in your view on my judgements. Many thanks for your
reaction.

Sincerely,

Nino Amiridze

> I will remind you that some languages allow reflexives to appear as
> subjects. For instance,
> Basque (cf. (1), Xabier Artiagoitia (p.c.)), Nepali (Bickel&Yadava
> 2000), Greek (Anagnostopoulou&Everaert 1999), Dargwa (Kibrik 1997),
> Georgian (cf. (2))...:
>
>  (1)     neure buruak hilko nau
>          my head-DET-ERG it.kills.me aux
>          Lit.: Myself kills me
>
>  "Something like my personality, the things I do and worry
>  about... that is going to kill me"

I don't know about the other examples but, interesting as it is, the
Basque one doesn't strike me as one with a reflexive subject.  The
"reflexive" ergative 'neure buruak' (lit. my head) here would seem to be
very different from the reflexive (absolutive) neure burua in a
reflexive sentence (cf. I'm going to kill myself; example (1) is also
future, by the way).  Much like the fact that not every example of
'myself' is a reflexive.

-Jon



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