Feature GB305: Is there a phonologically independent reflexive pronoun?

Patrons: Jakob Lesage

Description ⇫

Summary

Reflexive markers indicate that a participant is coreferential with another participant in the clause or sentence (cf. Haspelmath & The APiCS Consortium 2013). A reflexive marker can be derived from pronouns with reflexive morphology (e.g. him-self in English, lui-même in French). If reflexive meaning is expressed with a body part noun, e.g. a noun meaning ‘body’ or ‘head’ (They are scolding their body to mean ‘They are scolding themselves’), this also counts as 1. Emphatic pronouns (e.g. She cooked it (by) herself.) do not trigger a 1, since they do not express a participant.

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if the grammar discusses an independent reflexive marker in the language or if you find clear examples of independent reflexive markers.
  2. Code 0 if the grammar discusses reflexive morphology, reciprocal morphology, or reciprocal markers, but does not mention an independent reflexive marker. Write ‘not mentioned’ in the comment column.
  3. Code 0 if the grammar does not mention an independent reflexive marker in the language, but is otherwise comprehensive.
  4. Code ? if the grammar does not mention any independent reflexive marker, but you think the author may have missed them or for some reason does not discuss them. This includes cases where there are potential examples of reflexive markersin texts/sentences but you are not sure whether or not to treat them as such.

Examples

Hõne (ISO 639-3: juh, Glottolog: hone1235)

Hõne has reflexive pronouns that are formed from the word for ‘body’, dɪ̀rɪ̀, which occurs as the bound form dɪ̀r- in this context, and the possessive pronoun referring to the person performing the reflexive action: themselves becomes dɪ̀r-bɛ̄ɛ̄ ‘body-3PL.POSS’ (Storch 1999: 135–136). Hõne is coded 1.

bə̄-gwààn    bə́    dɪ̀r-bɛ̄ɛ̄
3PL-kill    with  body-3PL.POSS
‘They killed themselves.’ (Storch 1999: 136)

Kumzari (ISO 639-3: zum, Glottolog: kumz1235)

Kumzari has one reflexive form that is used for all persons and numbers, i.e. xō (van der Wal Anonby 2015: 62). Kumzari is coded 1.

gardīd-iš          xō    tēr-ē
turn.into:REAL-3S  REFL  bird-a
‘She turned herself into a bird.’ (van der Wal Anonby 2015: 62)

Rapanui (ISO 639-3: rap, Glottolog: rapa1244)

Rapanui does not have a specialized reflexive form, and is coded 0. Semantically reflexive clauses are expressed with the regular independent pronoun for the person performing the action (Kieviet 2017: 432–433).

¿Ko    haŋa   'ā    koe   mo   hore   atu    i    a     koe?
PFV    want   CONT  2SG   for  cut    away   ACC  PREP  2SG
‘Do you want to cut yourself?’ (Kieviet 2017: 432)

Further reading

Geniušienė, Emma S. 1987. The typology of reflexives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Haspelmath, Martin & The APiCS Consortium. 2013. Reflexive constructions. In Susanne M. Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds.), The atlas of pidgin and creole language structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

König, Ekkehard & Volker Gast. 2008. Reciprocity and reflexivity: Description, typology, and theory. In Ekkehard König & Volker Gast (eds), Reciprocals and reflexives: Theoretical and typological explorations, 1–31. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

References

Kieviet, Paulus. 2017. A grammar of Rapa Nui. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Storch, Anne. 1999. Das Hone und seine Stellung im Zentral-Jukunoid. (Westafrikanische Studien, 20.) Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.

van der Wal Anonby, Christina. 2015. A grammar of Kumzari: a mixed Perso-Arabian language of Oman. Leiden: Leiden University. (Doctoral dissertation.)


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Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment