Anaphoric Expressions in Telugu

Abstract

Telugu, a Dravidian language spoken in Southern India, has three anaphoric expressions. The main purpose of this paper explores anaphoric expressions in Telugu. Telugu employs a verbal reflexive marker, kun, to express reflexivity in addition to complex nominal reflexives such as tana-ni tanu and pronominal reflexives such as tana-n-e. The two forms of reflexives with the verbal reflexive marker must be bound by a local c-commanding antecedent. These constructions show that the syntactic conditions licensing reflexives preempt the verbal reflexive system licensing reflexives. Pronominal reflexives such as tana-n-e are unspecified or indeterminate with respect to the syntactic features such as [α pronominal]/[β anaphor]. When a verbal reflexive marker, kun, is not on verbs, tana-n-e cannot take a local c-commanding antecedent. The syntactic behavior of both nominal and verbal reflexives indicates that the presence of the verbal reflexive marker is not a sufficient and necessary condition for the reflexive interpretation. Thus, anaphoric expressions in Telugu requires principles of both syntactic conditions licensing anaphora as well as verbal reflexive system licensing reflexive predicates.