The typology of Malay reflexives

Abstract

Malay diri+pronoun appears on initial examination to be a counter example to the typological claims made in the literature regarding the properties of long distance (LD) reflexives. It has been claimed that (1) LD reflexives are monomorphemic; (2) LD reflexives are subject oriented; (3) in languages without subject–verb agreement, LD reflexives manifest the Blocking Effect, the blocking of a reflexive-antecedent relation due to the presence of an intervening subject with person features different from those of the local subject. We argue, however, that the apparent exceptionality of diri+pronoun is based on a misanalysis: diri+pronoun is not, in fact, a LD reflexive. Nor is it merely a pronoun. Rather, the form is not specified in the lexicon as either a pronoun or a reflexive. The present study examines the interpretations of diri+pronoun under ellipsis. As predicted for an anaphoric form lacking the features [α anaphor] and [α pronominal], the possible interpretations under ellipsis are the union of the interpretations of Malay true reflexives and pronouns. Arguments are provided against several alternative analyses. While the distribution of diri+pronoun appears exotic from the perspective of typology, similar forms occur in other Austronesian languages (e.g., Javanese), and have been reported for such familiar languages as Old English and Middle English.