Abstract
This article provides a non-formalistic description of the various reflexive pronouns in Afrikaans. In addition to the traditional class of reflexive pronouns, it is shown that possessive pronouns can also be used reflexively. The facts about (obligatory) reflexivity involving these two types of pronoun are illustrated with reference to several types of construction in which they can occur. It is moreover shown that, besides the subject, the reflexive can take as its antecedent an expression functioning as the direct object, indirect object or as a prepositional object. Attention is also given to a number of non-reflexive constructions, that is, constructions containing inherently non-reflexive verbs and prepositions which disallow a coreferential relationship between the pronoun and some other expression in the sentence.
Highlights
This article provides a largely non-formalistic description of the various reflexive pronouns in Afrikaans and the constructions in which they can occur; these represent some of the facts that have to be accounted for by a proper syntactic theory of reflexivity
Afrikaans items belonging to the traditional lexical category of reflexives come in two forms:2 (i) morphologically simplex forms that are indistinguishable from personal pronouns displaying accusative case, and (ii) morphologically complex forms where the pronoun takes the suffix –self
The objective of this article was to provide a non-formalistic description of the traditional class of reflexive pronouns in Afrikaans and of the diverse constructions in which they can occur
Summary
This article provides a largely non-formalistic description of the various reflexive pronouns in Afrikaans and the constructions in which they can occur; these represent some of the facts that have to be accounted for by a proper syntactic theory of reflexivity.. The term “construction” is used here in an informal, non-technical way, in line with the following comments by Chomsky (1995: 170): The notion of grammatical construction is eliminated [in minimalist syntax], and with it, construction-particular rules. Constructions such as verb phrase, relative clause, and passive remain only as taxonomic artefacts, collections of phenomena explained through the interaction of the principles of UG, with the values of parameters fixed. The term “reflexive construction” is used in a non-technical way as a convenient label to refer to a collection of phenomena involving the syntactic distribution of reflexives (cf Rizzi 2012: 3). Describing a particular construction as “reflexive” when it contains a reflexive pronoun, does not necessarily entail that it cannot be used with a non-reflexive pronoun, as will be illustrated below
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