On reflexive forms in creoles

Rethinking the relationship between SELF-intensifiers and reflexives

“…First, it is often assumed or at least implied that this process is unidirectional in the sense that SELF-intensifiers may develop into reflexives, but not vice versa (e.g. Faltz 1985;König and Siemund 2000;Schladt 2000;Heine 2003). We have shown that the opposite direction is also possible, and that in languages of the Japanese type a reflexive marker can give rise to an expression of actor-oriented intensification if it combines with an appropriate case marker.…”

“…Caligula 5839, quoted from van Gelderen (2001: 73) Similar developments can be observed in many other languages, and it is widely agreed that the development from SELF-intensifiers to reflexive markers as illustrated above is a process of considerable generality (cf. Faltz 1985;Levinson 1987Levinson , 1991Kemmer 1993;König and Siemund 2000a,b;Schladt 2000;Heine 2003). It can be represented in the simple formula given in (3).…”

“…Faltz 1985;Levinson 1987Levinson , 1991Kemmer 1993;König and Siemund 2000a;Heine 2003). As has been mentioned in section 1, the historical development of English shows how reflexive markers can arise from adding an intensifier to an otherwise referentially unspecific object pronoun.…”

Reflexive marking in Fijian

“…Taking into account Heine's (2005) categories of reflexive types, it is possible that the selection of reflexive marker in Fijian might be influenced by person. For example, a number of languages have reflexive types that fall into Heine's (2005) category of B-reflexives, namely reflexives that limit the use of distinct reflexive markers to utterances with a third person subject, reflexive arguments for first and second person subjects being represented with simple pronoun forms. Thus, the multiple choice and rating scale sections were designed to provide a complete set of information for the usage of two verbs with respect to first person, second person, and third person contexts.…”

Focalización con y sin incidencia argumental en la formación de palabras: el aporte de algunas lenguas indoeuropeas antiguas

“…Como bien se expone en una serie de trabajos impulsados desde hace ya algunas décadas (Faltz, 1977;König y Siemund, 2000;Heine, 2005), existe un importante vínculo entre los marcadores reflexivos de una cláusula verbal y otras funciones esencialmente semánticas con correlato en la sintaxis, como, por ejemplo, la reciprocidad o la intensificación 1 . Este fuerte vínculo no sólo suele encontrarse en una perspectiva sincrónica, sino también diacrónica, en tanto los diferentes valores con frecuencia se encuentran en un continuo de cambio diacrónico, lo cual explica que a partir de una de estas funciones se desarrolle alguna de las otras en una determinada lengua.…”