Clitic SE in Romance and Slavonic revisited

Abstract

In Slavonic and Romance languages there is a range of constructions that feature what is referred to as the “the reflexive clitic” se/si/sie . Adhering to the law of parsimony, we propose a unified analysis of the clitic across different reflexive-like and passive-like constructions. We put forth generally unnoticed evidence that the reflexive clitic construction in Slavonic languages allows two readings, and derive both the pure-reflexive and the “near-reflexive” readings. Finally, we show that within the Slavonic languages there is an array of intriguing differences across the constructions under consideration that splits the group into South/West Slavonic, on the one hand, and East Slavonic, on the other hand. We show that all the relevant differences can be derived from low-level differences in the functional system. Keywords: reflexivization; proxy-reading; pure-reflexive reading; non-reflexive uses of SE CL ; ambiguous X 0 /XP elements