reflexives in subject position

[cmanning at SULTRY.ARTS.USYD.EDU.AU]

On 17 February 2000, David Pesetsky wrote:
 > Even in Japanese, the bimorphemic zibun-zisin is supposed to differ from
 > zibun in requiring the nearest subject as its antecedent -- yet it is fine
 > in nominative subject position, unlike Standard English -self forms.

The emphasis here being on "is supposed to differ" -- while this
putative requirement has been maintained in a number of formal syntax
papers so that "Principle A" arguments can be made, it is of rather
doubtful validity.  (This is briefly discussed on pp. 63-64 of Manning,
Sag, and Iida, The lexical integrity of Japanese causatives in Levine
and Green eds. Studies in Contemporary Phrase Structure Grammar.)

Chris Manning