reflexives in subject position

[Nino Amiridze]

I would like to thank everyone who sent me a reply on my question on
reflexives in subject position.

William Morris suggested the following book: Dixon, R.M.W.  1994.
Ergativity.  Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press
Where the author cites several frozen expressions, NOT productive, which
involve reflexives in subject position:
> "Himself enchants my brother" Basque (Citation, Salterelli, 1988)
> "Myself enchants me" Modern Greek (Citation, Joseph and
Philippaki-Warburton, 1987)
> And in personal communication from Kibrik, references to the Dargwa verb
"praise".
Georgian does not allow subject reflexives with psych verbs but causatives
(both lexical and morphological). And they are not frozen expressions. They
are productive.

John Myhill asked whether it has anything to do with the subject being in
the ergative?
> Can you do the same thing with a sentence in the present, when the
subject is > in the nominative?
Georgian can have a reflexive in the subject position no matter the tense:
(1) prezident-i            ixsnis              tavis    tav-s
   president-nom  he-saves/shall-save-him   self's-dat  head-dat
             "The president saves/shall save himself"
(2) tavis-i     tav-i             ixsnis            president-s
  self's-nom   head-nom   he-saves/shall-save-him   president-dat
(a) "It is the president who saves/shall save himself, no one else is/will
be responsible for saving him" (emphatic reading);
(b) "The president is/will be out of the hard situation only because of
himself (his past doings, personal charm, etc.) but he cannot even
imagine/know/account for that" (non-volitional reading).

Wolfgang Schulze gave me examples form East Caucasian languages. I think
(and agree with Edith A Moravcsik) that these are the examples of emphatic
reflexives.
The Udi (South East Caucasian) example
>        ich Baqi-x kar-re-xa
>        REFL:ABS Baku-DAT2 live-3SG:S-LV-INTRANS:PRES
>        '(S)he lives in Baku.'
can be translated into Georgian only the following way:
Tviton          (is)        cxovrob-s   Baqu-shi.
Himself   (he-nom)      live-S3      Baku-in
         "He himself lives in Baku"
where in Georgian the subject pronoun is dropped out (pro-drop).
It has to be noted that emphasis is normally expressed in Georgian by
emphatic pronouns like tvit (<tav-it "head-INST"); tviton
(<tvit-an<tvit-van<tvit- man<tav-it-man "head-INST-ERG"); tavad (<tav-ad
"head-ABL") rather than reflexive phrase. All of them are historically
derived from tav- "head" (like the reflexive pronoun having the form
<POSSESSIVE + tav->) but they are not the same as the reflexive pronoun:
mcvel-ma       ixsna         president-i
guard-erg   he-saved-him    president-nom
     "The guard saved the president"
mcvel-ma       tavad  / *tavis-ma  tav-ma       ixsna         president-i
guard-erg   by-himself / self's-erg head-erg  he-saved-him    president-nom

     "The guard himself saved the president"

Balthasar Bickel gave me an example from Nepali
> aaphai-le     Raam-laaii barbaad  gar-yo.
> self:EMPH-ERG R.-DAT     spoiling do-PT3sM
> 'Ram got himself spoiled.' (from Bickel & Yadava, 'A fresh look at
Subject reflexive can perfectly be used with this verb in Georgian as well.
In fact a reflexive in subject position can be used with any verb being
able to imply a non-volitional agent.

Answering John Myhill, the reflexives in subject position are not
logophoric/long-range 'reflexives'.
> In Japanese, 'jibun', the ostensible 'reflexive', can freely be used in
> subject position, but this is because it isn't really a reflexive, in the
> sense that it doesn't require (and doesn't normally have) an antecedent
in the
> same clause.
The long distance "jibun" can be replaced by a personal pronoun without any
harm to the meaning and grammaticality. Is that right?
As for Goergian, the replacement will change the meaning:
    man       ixsna        president-i
   he-erg  he-saved-him   president-nom
     "He(i) saved the president(j)"
Here there is neither reflexive, nor emphatic / non-volitional readings.

> It gets used in 3rd person narratives when the writer wants to clearly
take the viewpoint of a certain character, e.g. In a 3rd person narrative
section if > you say 'jibun was tired' it's sort of like throwing in a
quote 'I'm tired',
> without quotations marks, you're reporting it 'from the inside' so to
speak.
The fact is that subject reflexives in Georgian are used not only in the
3rd person but in the 1st and 2nd person as well:

chem-ma   tav-ma        m-a-idzula           me         meqvira
myERG    headERG    O1-CAUS-force(PAST)     meDAT       to-shout
(a)  "(It was) MYSELF (who) forced me to shout" (emphatic)
(b) "(It was) myself (who) forced me to shout (I shouted though I was not
willing so" (non-volitional)

The reflexives in subject position are not logophors since they represent
not an entity from the previous discourse but one of the arguments of a
given verb - the Causer.

Wolfgang Schulze suggested the penomenon to be related to the fact that
reflexive is historically derived from a body-part noun (tav "head").
> I guess that in many such instances of reflexives in pseudo-A or demoted
> A-function the reflexive has a referential background at least in a
> Diachronic perspective (just as in Georgian, cf. Georgian _tavi_ < 'head').
> This Would explain a) the possibility to have the reflexive in A function
> without on antecedent,
It may not be called an "antecedent" but clearly there is an NP which is
co-referential to the reflexive in subject position.

> and b) why this process seems somewhat related to techniques of
'de-controlization'.
>As a result, 'part' or 'possessum' as A has reached a (rather) limited degree
> of control, whereas 'whole' (or 'possessor') - which is atypical in
O-function > if 'part' is present - looses at least certain 'portions' of
is controlhood, cf.
>    'part' in A [-control -> + control]
>    'whole' in O [+control -> -control]
It is really interesting to look at the reflexive phrase from the
part/whole relationship perspective. In Goergian in subject anaphoric
clauses the causee (full NP) is totally affected but not by the whole
referent but by a property(s) of it. The causer reduces metaphorically to
its property(s):

tavis-ma     tav-ma        dag'upa            prezidenti
self's-erg   head-erg   he-destroyed-him     persident-nom
(a)"It is the president and NO ONE ELSE who destroyed himself" (it is not
differentiated the action was volitional or not)
(b)"The president destroyed himself unconsciously, without really wanting
this, non-volitionally".
President's past doings, charachter, etc. is in fact a part not the whole
of his personality.

Subject anaphors are allowed even if there is not the reduction of the
whole to its part but another referent resembling the causee (wax statue, a
twin, etc). Therefore, there is not a part/whole relationship but still it
is possible to have a reflexive as a subject:
(1) Ringo     daeca       tavis       tav-s
 Ringo(NOM)   fell-on   self's(DAT)  head(NOM)
          "Ringo fell on himself"
 Actual Ringo fell on the statue of Ringo
*Statue of Ringo fell on the actual Ringo

(2) tavis-i     tav-i      daeca     Ringo-s
  self's(NOM)  head(NOM)   fell-on   Ringo(DAT)
????? "Himself fell on Ringo"
*Actual Ringo fell on the statue of Ringo
Statue of Ringo fell on the actual Ringo

There are such cases when there cannot be an non-volitional reading and the
only meaning that a sentence can bear is the emphatic one. Such cases are
mostly in certain contexts or with verbs of certain semantic class. Namely,
with verbs the semantics of which excludes volition as such:
tavis-ma       tav-ma             damarxa                mixa
self's-Erg     head-erg     (s)he-buried-him(her)     Michael-nom

Since a dead person  cannot bury himself neither with volition nor without
it the sentence is grammatical only when there is a metaphorical shift in
meaning. The only thing that the sentence can mean is the following: "No
one/nothing else but Michael's savings made it possible to pay for all
expenses related to his funeral".
Therefore, volition is completely out while emphasis is still there.

What gives the emphatic reading?
There is no emphatic reflexive (tvit/tavad/tviton) there in subject
anaphoric sentences. Perhaps the reflexive phrase in the pre-verbal slot
which is a focus slot in Georgian?
But even if we remove the reflexive from the focus slot the emphatic
meaning will still remain there:

   president-i          ixsna        tavis-ma     tav-ma
   president-nom     he-saved-him   self's-erg  head-erg
(a) "It was the president who saved himself, no one else is responsible for
saving him" (emphatic reading);
(b) "The president was out of the hard situation only because of himself
(his past doings, personal charm, etc.) but he could not even
imagine/know/accounted for that" (non-volitional reading).

Thank you.

Sincerely,

    Nino Amiridze