Reflexivity and reflexive marking

Abstract

Reflexive markers are expressions such as English myself , yourself , himself , and herself . As English reflexive markers are highly polysemous and compete with other expressions in the reflexive domain, we will distinguish very carefully between reflexive markers as form types and reflexive relations as a semantic concept. We will provide an overview of reflexive markers and reflexive relations in Section 2.1. This overview is based on well-known facts taken from the standard varieties. These will be contrasted with observations from non-standard varieties in Section 2.2, where we find astonishing differences both in terms of form and function. Our cross-linguistic comparison in Section 2.3 will provide a frame of reference for the interpretation of the observed phenomena. Overview We may define reflexive relations as the co-indexation of two constituents in a simple clause. In the typical case these constituents are the two arguments of a transitive predicate, i.e. subject and object. Co-indexation means that the two constituents are interpreted as referentially identical – they point to the same referent. In English we can use expressions such as himself to achieve this kind of co-indexation. Let us call the constituent that is co-indexed with the reflexive marker its ‘antecedent’. A typical example is shown in (1). We may indicate co-indexation by a subscript letter, or by listing the antecedent in brackets behind the reflexive expression. (1) a. John i sees himself i in the mirror. b. John sees himself (= John) in the mirror.