Quasi-passive reflexive constructions: Bridging autonomous and passive situations

Abstract

Abstract It is common for languages crosslinguistically to employ the same verb form in several diathetic constructions distinguished by a different degree of agent suppression. In South Slavic languages the so called ‘quasi-passive reflexive se-constructions’ (QRCs) encode a number of non-factual situations, expressing an array of semantically close meanings unified by modal semantics. The paper argues that QRCs in South Slavic languages represent a gradient category comprising potential, normative and generalizing situation types. The difference between these subclasses depends on the degree of implication of the agent in the construction: the agent is indirectly evoked in the potential, its presence can be felt in the normative, and a non-referring agent is present in the generalizing constructions. The intended interpretation of QRCs is obtained through the predicate-participant relation and pragmatic factors. In shaping the setting the latter may trigger overlapping between the subclasses. The goal of the paper is to prove that QRCs supply the cognitive link between anticausative reflexive (coding autonomous events) and passive reflexive constructions (coding agent defocusing situations): the potential type is closer to anticausatives, while the generalizing type shows affinity with passives. Such scalar analysis of QRCs may contribute to a better understanding of the typology of reflexive constructions.