reciprocals as subjects

[Jose-Luis Mendivil]

Dear Nino,
thank you very much for your patient and detailed explanation. I see
now what you mean. I haven't anything to add but that you have
convinced me that these reflexives are subjects.

Best regards,
Jose-Luis.

>Dear Jose-Luis Mendivil,
>
>thank you so much for your message and the Spanish sentences. They are
>an excellent example how misleading can the form be:
>
>>(2)     Me golpeo a mi mismo
>>         (I) hit myself
>>(3)     Yo mismo me golpeo
>>         I myself hit(me)
>
>Spanish is like many other languages having reflexives and intensifiers
>of the same form. So we have to be careful when discussing the subject
>status of 'mismo', as I understood, in (3).
>
>But I do not see how Spanish is related to the Basque case where the
>phrase 'bere burua' is a subject argument (cf. (1)). The head of the
>phrase 'burua' is marked by ERG. And I think (please correct me if I am
>mistaken) reflexives do not resemble intensifiers in Basque. So there is
>no way to consider 'bere buruak' in (1) as an intensifier. It is a
>reflexive phrase and it is an argument of the verb unlike the Spanish
>intensifier in (3) being an adjunct:
>
>>    (1)     neure buruak hilko nau
>>            my head-DET-ERG it.kills.me aux
>>            Lit.: Myself kills me
>
>Basque looks very much like Georgian not only by having a
>grammaticalized body-part for "head" for reflexives but also by allowing
>the reflexives to appear as subjects (cf. (7)).
>
>Georgian is a very transparent case since there reflexives and
>intensifiers are distinct by form (although both originating from the
>same body-part tav- "head"). So there is absolutely no way to mix
>reflexives and intensifiers by form in Georgian as it is possible for
>instance, in English or Spanish.
>
>As example (4) and its pro-dropped version in (5) make it clear in
>Georgian it is ungrammatical to have a reflexive instead of the
>intensifier:
>
>(4)    tavad / *[tavis-i tav-i] p'rezident'-i daesc'ro shexvedra-s
>       INTENSIFIER / REFLEXIVE president-NOM he.attended.it meeting-DAT
>       "The president himself attended the meeting"
>
>(5)    tavad / *[tavis-i tav-i] daesc'ro shexvedra-s
>       INTENSIFIER / REFLEXIVE he.attended.it meeting-DAT
>       "He himself attended the meeting"
>
>Just like it is ungrammatical to have an intensifier instead of the
>reflexive (cf. (6)):
>
>(6)    p'rezident'-ma ixsna tavis-i tav-i / *tavad
>       president-ERG he.saved.him REFLEXIVE/INTENSIFIER
>       "The president saved himself"
>
>There is no way to consider the reflexive phrase as an intensifier
>either in (7):
>
>(7)    [tavis-ma tav-ma]/ *tavad ixsna p'rezident'-i
>       [REFLEXIVE(ERG)] / INTENSIFIER he.saved.him president-NOM
>       Lit: Himself saved the president
>       "Something related to the president saved him"
>
>The reflexive in (7) is a subject argument of the verb just like the
>phrase "tavis-ma mcvel-ma" in (8):
>(8)    [tavis-ma mcvel-ma] ixsna p'rezident'-i
>       self's-ERG bodyguard-ERG he.saved.him president-NOM
>       Lit: His.own bodyguard saved the president
>       "The president was saved by his own bodyguard"
>
>If we try to substitute the intensifier for the reflexive in (7) we get
>a different sentence (compare the translations of (7) and (9)):
>
>(9)    tavad ixsna p'rezident'-i
>       INTENSIFIER he.saved.him president-NOM
>       "(He) himself saved the president"
>
>The reflexive phrase 'tavis-ma tav-ma' in (7) is in an anaphoric
>relation with the object of the verb - prezident-i. While the
>intensifier 'tavad' in (9) is an adjunct to the pro-dropped pronominal
>serving as a subject of the verb:
>
>(9')   tavad man ixsna p'rezident'-i
>       INTENSIFIER he(ERG) he.saved.him president-NOM
>       "He himself saved the president"
>
>Therefore, it is not possible to consider the subject uses of reflexives
>as intensifiers in Georgian and thus put them away as not truely
>reflexive. Anyway this will not help us with the subject uses of
>reciprocals where it is very hard to find some other label for the
>reciprocals for explaning their behaviour (cf. (10) or the sentence
>from my very first message given here as (11)):
>
>(10)   ertmanet-i gvaopcebs chven
>       RECIPROCAL-NOM it.surprises.us we(DAT)
>       Lit.: Each other surprise us
>       "We are surprised by something related to each other"
>
>(11)    ertmanet-i k'lavt ivane-s da meri-s
>       each.other-nom it.kills.them John-dat and Mary-dat
>       Lit.: Each other kill John and Mary
>       "Something related to each other makes John and Mary suffer"
>
>Thank you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>nino amiridze