[Lingtyp] "Double reflexive" constructions
Luigi Talamo
luigi.talamo at uni-saarland.de
Tue Dec 14 15:39:16 UTC 2021
Just a quick comment from an Italian native speaker: I'd rather translate the Latin sentence:
La guerra si alimenterà da se
the war REFL.3SG feed.FUT.3SG from REFL.3SG
and not
La guerra si alimenterà se stessa
which is unheard at least in my Italian; note also that preposing 'se stessa' (INTSF+REFL) does not seem to work:
La guerra si alimenterà da se stessa
A more informal translation could be
La guerra si alimenterà da sola
in which 'sola' is the intensifier.
Best,
Luigi
Dr. Luigi Talamo - Post doc
Universität des Saarlandes
Language Science and Technology
Campus A2.2, Dienstzimmer 1.18
66123 Saarbrücken
> On 9 Dec 2021, at 19:23, Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hi Riccardo,
>
> > So, my new question is: are there any constructions in which a marker that has reflexivity as its only attested function co-occurs with a pronoun or intensifier -- or, for that matter, in which a reflexive-only pronoun co-occurs with an intensifier?
> Well, Classical Latin does come to mind:
> The pronouns se, sibi are inherently reflexive; and yet, it is not rare to have it co-occur with intensifier ipse / ipsum:
>
> e.g. in 195 BCE, as Rome was invading Hispania (Spain), the statesman Cato the Elder refused to send food supplies to Rome's army, and instead proposed that the army should simply pillage the invaded country to loot for provisions. Hence his famous quote:
>
> 1) Bellum se ips-um al-e-t.
> war Refl:ACC Intsf-ACC feed-Fut-3sg
> “The war will just feed itself.”
>
> It's difficult to render the effect in English, as both se and ipsum would be translated as “itself”. In Italian, you'd have smtg like La guerra si alimenterà se stessa.
>
> Likewise, Emperor Marcus Aurelius' Meditations had the original title Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν ('those to himself')
> which in Latin was sometimes rendered this way:
>
> 2) Marci Antonini commentarii quos ipse sibi scrip-si-t
> Marcus:GEN Antoninus:GEN note:Nom:Pl REL:ACC:pl Intsf:NOM Refl:DAT write-PFT-3sg
> liter. “M. [Aurelius] Antoninus’ notes which he himself wrote to himself.”
>
> _______
>
> In fact, as I think about it, the reflexive pronoun in Classical Greek ἑαυτόν itself results from the univerbation of:
> • the archaic reflexive ἕ [he] < PIE *swé 'reflexive pronoun' (cognate with Lat. se)
> • the intensifier αὐτόν [Acc] < αὐτός [Nom] 'himself / this very one / the same'
> The simple reflexive ἕ [he] or ἑέ [heé] is only attested in archaic texts, such as Homer.
> Thus, Iliad 19:384 has ἕο αὐτοῦ [Refl:M:Gen Intsf:M:Gen] '(Achilles…) of himself', in separate words.
>
> The univerbation / grammaticalization of {reflexive + intensifier} into a simplex {reflexive} pronoun (citation form: genitive ἑαυτοῦ) was completed by the time of Classical Attic (~500 BCE).
>
> best
> Alex
> Alex François
>
> LaTTiCe — CNRS–ENS–Sorbonne nouvelle
> Australian National University
> Personal homepage
> _________________________________________
>
>
> On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 at 18:13, Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi at campus.ul.pt> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Thank you very much for an impressive set of data and references -- with some touches of fun, Joseph, which is always nice :)
>
> As a follow-up to my original question, I would now like to mention that, as far as I can see, probably all the verbal markers used in combination with a pronoun or intensifier have other functions besides reflexivity (although I still need to check a few references, especially as regards some of the South American languages referred to by Josh Birchall). This makes sense, of course, because the function (or at least, the origin) of the "double reflexive" is usually that of bringing out the reflexive meaning unambiguously; on the other hand, it is not totally unconceivable that a reflexive-only affix or particle could co-occur with a pronoun or intensifier, although one would in principle expect such a situation to be relatively rare. So, my new question is: are there any constructions in which a marker that has reflexivity as its only attested function co-occurs with a pronoun or intensifier -- or, for that matter, in which a reflexive-only pronoun co-occurs with an intensifier?
>
> Again, many thanks in advance and best wishes to all!
> R
>
> P.S.: @Randy: since the term "middle" is used in so many different ways in the literature, I am not sure this is relevant to your consideration, but indeed there are several languages in which the intransitivizer occurring in "double reflexive" constructions also occurs in non-reflexive (and non-middle?) situations. For instance, the marker -ki in Mosetén is used for antipassive/object demotion (e.g. 'I eat-ki'); and then of course we have the intransitivizing prefixes of Oceanic languages, which have a remarkable variety of uses.
>
> Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com> escreveu no dia quinta, 9/12/2021 à(s) 13:05:
> Dear Riccardo,
>
> In Mwotlap (an Oceanic language of Vanuatu), the reflexive/reciprocal is usually unmarked: such interpretations are usually simply inferred from the co-reference between the agent and the patient [e.g. “I saw me”].
>
> With a 3rd non-singular pronoun (dual, trial or plural), there is an ambiguity between
> (a) a simple transitive clause with distinct referents for agent & patient
> (b) a reflexive interpretation
> (c) a reciprocal interpretation
>
> Thus ex (1) has three interpretations:
> 1) Kōyō mu-wuh mat kōyō.
> 3du PFT-hit dead 3du
> a/ “They killed them.” [2 people killed 2 other people, total 4 participants]
> b/ “They killed themselves.” [2 people committing suicide]
> c/ “They killed each other.”
>
> Now, Mwotlap also has a reversive ('refactive'?) postverb lok 'back, again':
> 2) Nok so m̄ōl lok l-ēm̄.
> 1sg Prosp return REVERS Loc-house
> “Let me go back home.”
>
> 3) Vap lok se!
> say REVERS also
> “Say it again!”
>
> If you use that reversive lok in a sentence like (1) above, you disambiguate its meaning by ruling out interpretations (a) and (c);
> essentially you're left with an interpretation as a reflexive:
>
> 4) Kōyō mu-wuh mat lok kōyō.
> 3du PFT-hit dead REVERS 3du
> ? a/ “They killed them.” [2 people killed 2 other people, total 4 participants]
> b/ “They killed themselves.” [2 people committing suicide]
> ? a/ “They killed each other.”
>
> This seems to be the sort of structure you were looking for.
> ____
> Reference: See page 372 of my dissertation:
> • François, Alexandre. 2001.
> Contraintes de structures et liberté dans l'organisation du discours: Une description du mwotlap, langue océanienne du Vanuatu.
> Doctoral dissertation in Linguistics, Université Paris-IV Sorbonne. 1078 pp.
> best,
> Alex
> Alex François
>
> LaTTiCe — CNRS–ENS–Sorbonne nouvelle
> Australian National University
> Personal homepage
> _________________________________________
>
>
> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 at 18:16, Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi at campus.ul.pt> wrote:
> Dear typologists,
>
> I am looking for languages in which, with some predicates at least, unambiguous expression of reflexivity is only attained by combining two separate markers. Typically, the elements participating in such "double-reflexive" constructions (quotes needed) belong to one of the following, broadly-defined classes:
>
> - a valency-decreasing "middle" marker / intransitivizer (usually, though not necessarily a bound morpheme);
>
> - a reflexive, personal or logophoric pronoun;
>
> - a so-called reflexive intensifier, i.e. an element that functions like English reflexive pronouns in appositional or adverbial position (e.g. I myself swept the ground / I swept the ground myself).
>
> Below are a few examples of possible combinations of such elements (I have harmonized the glosses used by the various authors):
>
> Intransitivizer + reflexive pronoun: Kuuk Thaayorre
> <immagine.png>
>
> Intransitivizer + personal pronoun: Hmwaveke
> <immagine.png>
>
> Intransitivizer + intensifier (attached to the (subject) nominal and glossed 'SELF'): Dyirbal
> <immagine.png>
>
> Intransitivizer + intensifier (attached to the verb): Mezquital Otomí
> <immagine.png>
> (Gast & Siemund 2006: 368. The authors also give an example in which the intensifier takes the longer form sε̌hε̒ and occurs as an unbound adverb-like element.)
>
> Intensifier (marked ergative, in apposition to the (subject) nominal) + personal/logophoric pronoun (marked absolutive) : Tsakhur
> <immagine.png>
>
> If any of you is aware of a language in which "double marking" of reflexivity is the only option, that would be especially helpful; but, more generally, I am interested in all such constructions -- or possibly other, comparable ones which I may be leaving out of the picture. (Please don't bother signalling Germanic or Romance data like German sich + selbst or Spanish si + a si mismo -- I am already taking those into account.)
>
> Many thanks in advance, best wishes,
> Riccardo
>
> References
> Dik, Simon C. 1983. The Status of verbal reflexives. In Liliane Tasmowski & Dominique Willems (eds.), Problems in syntax, 231–255. New York & London: Plenum Press.
> Gaby, Alice. 2006. A grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre. Melbourne: University of Melbourne dissertation.
> Gast, Volker & Peter Siemund. 2006. Rethinking the relationship between SELF-intensifiers and reflexives". Linguistics 44(2), 343-381.
> Lyutikova, Ekaterina A. 2000. Reflexives and emphasis in Tsaxur (Nakh-Dagestanian). In Z. Frajzyngier and T. Curl (eds.), Reflexives: Forms and Functions, 227-255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
> Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 2008. Constructions expressing middle, reflexive and reciprocal situations in some Oceanic languages. In Ekkehard König & Volker Gast (eds.), Reciprocals and reflexives: Theoretical and typological explorations, 105–168. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
>
> --
> Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
> University of Liège
> Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction
> Research group Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues
> F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
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