reflexives in subject position

[Dan Everett]

One question: does ERGative case in this language have any other
functions, e.g. instrumental, locative, etc?

Dan Everett

Balthasar Bickel wrote:
>
> The following question was recently posted on FUNKNET and, with
> apologies for duplicates, I cc this to LINGTYP:
>
> Nino Amiridze wrote:
> > I would really appreciate it if you could give me any references on
> > reflexives in subject position. Or perhaps any of you know a language(s)
> > allowing reflexives in subject position.
> >
> > My native language Georgian besides the "normal" reflexivization
> >
> > (1) prezident-ma       ixsna         tavis-i    tav-i
> >     president-erg   he-saved-him   self's-nom  head-nom
> >           "The president saved himself"
> >
> > allows subject reflexives as well:
> >
> > (2) tavis-ma     tav-ma       ixsna        president-i
> >    self's-erg   head-erg   he-saved-him   president-nom
> > (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).
>
> Reflexives in A function (and with a truly anaphoric function) are also
> attested in Nepali, e.g.,
>
> 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
> grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan', in press, Lingua 2000)
>
> In his 1994 book, Dixon (p. 238f) suggests that reflexives in A function
> involve "verb[s] referring to a mental process", quoting Modern Greek
> and Basque as examples. Nepali fully confirms this pattern. Georgian
> apparently doesn't, but it is interesting to note that the (b) reading
> in (2) above has a non-volitional flavor to it that is also
> characteristic of Nepali.
>
> Is anybody aware of other instances of reflexive pronouns in A function,
> and of semantic effects tied to such constructions?
>
> Balthasar Bickel.