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Is there a phonologically bound reflexive marker on the verb?
Summary
A reflexive marker indicates that a participant is coreferential with another participant in the clause or sentence. This marker may indicate both reflexive and reciprocal functions. If a ‘middle-voice’ marker is used to mark reflexive functions, it also counts as a reflexive marker. Reduplication of verbs also counts. The reflexive construction needs to be productive, not limited to a small set of likely lexicalized verbs in the language, to trigger 1 for this feature. This question targets lexical verbs, anything that happens with auxiliaries is not relevant for this feature.
Procedure
- Code 1 if the grammar discusses a productive reflexive marker that is phonologically bound to the verb. Middle voice markers that are obligatory in reflexive constructions also count as reflexive markers.
- Code 1 if the grammar discusses a marker that is phonologically bound to the verb and it encodes both reflexive and reciprocal functions.
- Code 0 if the grammar discusses reciprocal markers or a phonologically independent reflexive marker, but does not mention a phonologically bound reflexive marker on verbs. Write 'not mentioned' in the comment column.
- Code 0 if the grammar only discusses unproductive reflexive markers on verbs.
- Code 0 if an otherwise comprehensive grammar does not discuss reflexive markers. Write ‘not mentioned’ in the comment column.
- Code ? if there is not enough data or analysis in the available sources to determine whether there is a bound reflexive marker on verbs or whether it is productive.
Examples
Hokkaido Ainu (ISO 639-3: ain, Glottolog: ainu1240)
Hokkaido Ainu has a reflexive prefix yay- (Tamura 2000: 204). This language is coded 1 for this feature.
kik ‘to hit’
yay-kik ‘to hit oneself’
nuyna ‘to hide’
yay-nuya ‘to hide oneself’
Yimas (ISO 639-3: yee, Glottolog: yima1243)
Yimas does not have any specialized reflexives, and receives a 0 value for this feature: "Yimas lacks any coherent way of forming reflexive constructions" (Foley 1991: 286).
Rapanui (ISO 639-3: rap, Glottolog: rapa1244)
Rapanui does not have a specialized reflexive form, and receives a value of 0. Semantically reflexive clauses are just expressed with the regular pronoun for the person performing the action (Kieviet 2017: 432–433).
¿Ko haŋa 'ā koe mo hore atu i a koe?
PRF want CONT 2SG for cut away ACC ART 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 Maria Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds), The atlas of pidgin and creole language structures, 346–349. 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.
Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä. 2019. Grammatical voice. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics, 59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
References
Foley, William. 1991. The Yimas language of New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kieviet, Paulus. 2017. A grammar of Rapa Nui. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Tamura, Suzuko. 2000. The Ainu language. (ICHEL Linguistic Studies, 2.) Tokyo: Sanseido.
Related Features
- GB115 Is there a phonologically bound reciprocal marker on the verb?
- GB124 Is incorporation of nouns into verbs a productive intransitivizing process?
- GB147 Is there a morphological passive marked on the lexical verb?
- GB148 Is there a morphological antipassive marked on the lexical verb?
- GB303 Is there a phonologically free antipassive marker ('particle' or 'auxiliary')?
- GB305 Is there a phonologically independent reflexive marker?
- GB306 Is there a phonologically independent reciprocal marker that does not consist of two quantifiers (e.g. each + other; two + two)?
Patron
Jakob Lesage