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Contrastive Studies in Verbal Valency
Edited by Lars Hellan, Andrej L. Malchukov and Michela Cennamo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 237] 2017
► pp. 407–430

Semantic constraints on the reflexive/non-reflexive alternation of Romanian unaccusatives

| “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute for Linguistics, Romanian Academy & University of Bucharest
| “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute for Linguistics, Romanian Academy & University of Bucharest

The paper discusses semantic effects associated with the alternation between the reflexive and the non-reflexive form of a restricted class of 38 Romanian unaccusative verbs. We start by summarizing the values of the Romanian reflexive marker se and then we present the inventory of Romanian unaccusatives which enter the reflexive/non-reflexive alternation. Finally, we tell apart several classes of Romanian alternating unaccusatives on the basis of the factors which dictate the choice of the reflexive or the non-reflexive form, we compare these factors with the ones that are at play for other Romance languages, and we conclude that a unitary semantic analysis of the alternation is not available for Romanian.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Romanian data
    • 2.1The values of Romanian se
      • 2.1.1 Se as a reflexive/reciprocal pronoun
      • 2.1.2 Se as a formative of inherently reflexive predicates
      • 2.1.3Anticausative se
      • 2.1.4Summary
      • 2.1.5 Se as a voice marker
    • 2.2The reflexive/non-reflexive alternation of Romanian unaccusatives
      • 2.2.1Preliminary remarks
      • 2.2.2Inventory of alternating unaccusatives
  • 3.Romanian vs Romance
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.237.13dra
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