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This paper discusses two problems about middle constructions in German, English and Dutch. The first question is why a reflexive pronoun occurs only in German middle constructions. After having discussed expressions for grooming actions and inchoative situations, it is pointed out that only in German reflexive pronouns can occur in sentences in which the external argument is suppressed. Folio wing Steinbach (2002), it is then argued that only German reflexives can mediate the linking of the syntactic subject to the internal argument. The second question is why middle constructions can be formed from so-called double object verbs in German, but not in English and Dutch. After having pointed out that middle constructions are not :ompatible with an accusative argument, it is claimed that morphological coding patterns for indirect objects contribute to the language difFerence: Whereas in English and Dutch indirect objects remaining in middle constructions are encoded in accusative, they are expressed in dative in German.

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