Chapter 5
Causality, comitativity, contrastivity, and selfhood
A view from the left periphery and the vP periphery
When people talk about reflexives, they often think of two arguments in an anaphoric or coargumental relationship. This paper sets out to show that reflexive adverbials also participate in such kind of relationship, but with a far greater range of interpretative possibilities closely associated with their syntactic distributions. The syntax-semantics correspondence strictly observes an inner-outer dichotomy of adverbials observed across languages, i.e., inner Self expresses comitativity, whereas outer Self express causality. Our finding thus lends a substantial support to the cartographic approach advocated by Rizzi (1997) and Cinque (1999). It is also argued that this behavior can be accommodated by a general theory of reflexivity along the line of Reinhart & Reuland (1993), given that a contrastive focus is introduced in accordance with the phase edges (Chomsky 2000, 2001). The “selfhood” can then be understood in a new light, not only in terms of the general theory of syntax-semantics mapping, but also in terms of the “topography” of adverbials, which is by and large determined by their morphological makeups in particular languages.
Article outline
- 0.Introduction
- 1.The delimiting factors
- 1.1Modals
- 1.2Negation
- 1.3Adverbs of quantification
- 1.4Control verbs
- 2.Subject agentivity
- 3.Reflexives of nature
- 4.A working hypothesis
- 4.1Inner self as a focus adverb
- 4.2Comitativity and subject agentivity
- 4.3Contrastive focus and inner self
- 5.Outer adverbial ziji as a focus adverb
- 5.1Inner self and inner how
- 5.2Outer self and outer how
- 5.3Causality and reflexives of nature
- 5.4Anti-causal readings revisited
- 6.Further consequences
- 6.1Inner-outer dichotomy in compounding
- 6.2Relating anaphors to reflexive adverbials
- 7.Concluding remarks
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References
References (58)
Aoun, Joseph and Y.-H. Audrey Li
1993 On some Differences between Chinese and Japanese Wh-Elements.
Linguistic Inquiry 20, 265–272.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Belletti, Adriana
2005 Extended doubling and the VP periphery.
Probus 171, 1–35.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bickerton, Derek
1987 He himself – Anaphor, pronoun, or …? Linguistic Inquiry 18, 345–348.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bouchard, Denis
1984 On the Content of Empty Categories. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bromberger, Sylvain
1992 On What We Know We Don’t Know. Chicago University Press & Center for Study of Language and Information, Stanford.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Browning, M. A.
1993 Adverbial Reflexives.
NELS 23(1): 83–94.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cheng, Lisa L.-S.
1991 On the Typology of Wh-questions. Ph.D.Diss., MIT.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chierchia, Gennaro
1989 A Semantics for Unaccusatives and its Syntactic Consequences. Ms., Cornell University.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chomsky, Noam
2000 Minimalist Inquiries: The framework. In
Roger Martin,
David Michaels, and
Juan Uriagereka (eds.),
Step by step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chomsky, Noam
2001 Derivation by Phase. In
Michael Kenstowicz (ed.),
Ken Hale: A Life in Language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cinque, Guglielmo
1988 On Si Constructions and the Theory of Arb.
Linguistic Inquiry 19, 521–581.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cinque, Guglielmo
1999 Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Clark, Robin and Ian Roberts
1993 A Computational Model of Language Learnability and Language Change.
Linguistic Inquiry 24, 299–345.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon and Li-May Sung
1990 Principles and Parameters of Long-Distance Reflexives.
Linguistic Inquiry 21: 1–22.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cole, Peter and Li-May Sung
1994 Head Movement and Long Distance Reflexives.
Linguistic Inquiry 25: 355–406.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Eckardt, Regine
2001 Reanalyzing selbest.
Natural Language Semantics 9, 371–412.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gast, Volker
2002 The Grammar of Identity – Intensifier and Reflexives as Expressions of an Identity Function. Ph.D. diss., Free University of Berlin.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gast, Volker and Peter Siemund
2004 Rethinking the relation between Intensifiers and Reflexives. Ms., Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Hamburg.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Grimshaw, Jane
1982 On the Lexical Representation of Romance Reflexive Clitics. In
Joan Bresnan (ed.),
The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, 87–148. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Grimshaw, Jane
1990 Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hole, Daniel
2002 Agentive Selfbest in German. In
Graham Katz,
Sabine Reinhard, and
Philip Reuter (eds.),
Sinn und Bedeutung VI: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Meeting of Gesellschraft für Semantik, 133–150. University of Osnabrück.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hole, Daniel
2005 Agentive Selbst and other Instantiations of the Identity Function in German. Ms., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Huang, C.-T. James and C.-C. Jane Tang
1991 The Local Nature of the Long-Distance Reflexives in Chinese. In
J. Koster and
E. Reuland (eds.),
Long-Distance Anaphora, 263–282. Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Huang, C.-T. James, and Luther C.-S. Liu
2000 Logophoricity, Attitudes and Ziji at the Interface. In
Peter Cole,
Gabriella Hermon and
C.-T. James Huang (eds.),
Syntax and Semantics 33: Long-Distance Reflexives, 141–195. New York: Academic Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Huang, C.-T. James
2015 On Syntactic Analyticity and Parametric Theory. In
Y.-H. Audrey Li,
Andrew Simpson, and
W.-T. Dylan Tsai (eds.),
Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective, 1–48. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jayaseelan, K. A.
1997 Anaphors as Pronouns.
Studia Linguistica 51, 186–234.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kayne, Richard
1988 Romance se/si
.
GLOW newsletter 20.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
König, Ekkehard
2001 Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns. In
Martin Haspelmath,
Ekkehard König,
Wulf Oesterreicher and
Wolfgang Raible (eds.),
Language typology and language universals: an international handbook, Vol. 1, 747–60. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kratzer, Angelika
1996 Severing the External Argument from its Verb. In
J. Rooryck and
L. Zaring (eds.),
Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, 109–137. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lü, Shuxiang
1980 Xian Dai Han Yu Ba Bai Ci [Eight Hundred Words of Modern Chinese]. Shangwu Publishers.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Manzini, Maria Rita
1986 On Italian si
. In
H. Borer (ed.),
Syntax and Semantics 19, 241–262. New York: Academic Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Marantz, Alec
1984 On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pan, Haihua
1997 Constraints on Reflexivization in Mandarin Chinese. New York: Garland Publishing.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Parsons, Terence
1990 Events in the Semantics of English: a Study in Subatomic Semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Parsons, Terence
1995 Thematic Relations and Arguments.
Linguistic Inquiry 26, 635–62.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pesetsky, David
1995 Zero Syntax: Experiencer and Cascades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya
1998
Wh-in-situ in the Framework of the Minimalist Program.
Natural Language Semantics 6, 29–56.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya
1997 Syntactic Effects of Lexical Operations: Reflexives and Unaccusatives.
OTS Working Papers in Linguistics. University of Utrecht.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya
2000 The Theta System: Syntactic Realization of Verbal Concepts.
OTS working papers in linguistics. University of Utrecht.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya
2002 The Theta System: An Overview.
Theoretical Linguistics 28(3), 229–290.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya and Eric Reuland
1993 Reflexivity.
Linguistic Inquiry 24, 657–720.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Reinhart, Tanya and Tal Siloni
2004 Against an Unaccusative Analysis of Reflexives. In
A. Alexiadou,
E. Anagnostopoulou and
M. Everaert (eds.),
The unaccusativity Puzzle: Studies on the Syntax-Lexicon Interface, 159–180. Oxford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rizzi, Luigi
1990 Relativized Minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rizzi, Luigi
1997 The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In
Elements of Grammar, ed.
L. Haegeman, 281–338. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Roberts, Ian and Anna Roussou
1999 A Formal Approach to Grammaticalization. Ms., University of Stuttgart and University of Wales, Bangor.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rooth, Mats
1985 Association with Focus. Ph.D.diss., University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rooth, Mats
1992 A Theory of Focus Interpretation.
Natural Language Semantics 1, 75–116.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shlonsky, Ur and Gabriela Soare
2011 Where’s ‘Why’? Linguistic Inquiry 42(4), 651–669.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Siemund, Peter
2000 Intensifiers: A Comparison of English and German. London: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sportiche, Dominique
1998 Partitions and Atoms of Clause Structure: Subjects, Agreement, Case and Clitics. London: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tang, C.-C. Jane
1989 Chinese Reflexives.
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7, 93–121.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tang, C.-C. Jane
1990 Chinese Phrase Structure and the Extended X’-theory. Ph.D.diss., Cornell University.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan
1994 On Economizing the Theory of A-bar Dependencies. Ph.D.diss., MIT.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan
1999a On Lexical Courtesy.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8, 39–73.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan
1999b The Hows of Why and The Whys of How
. In
Francesca Del Gobbo and
Hidehito Hoshi (eds.),
UCI Working Papers in Linguistics 5, 155–184.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan
2002 Ziji, Zixing yu Ziran: Tan Hanyu zhong de Fanshen Zhuangyu [Self, Selfhood, and Nature: On Reflexive Adverbials in Chinese].
Zhongguoyuwen 289, 357–362.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan
2008 Left Periphery and How-Why Alternations.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17, 83–115.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vendler, Zeno
1967 Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
Łukasz Jędrzejowski & Carla Umbach
2023.
Non-Interrogative Subordinate Wh-Clauses,
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.