Middle voice reflexives and argument structure in Baltic
The article deals with Baltic reflexives covering the semantic domain of the middle voice in a narrower sense, that is, the non-anticausative middles as illustrated in constructions like The bread cuts easily. The emphasis is on the Baltic languages, but the data of Slavonic and, to a lesser extent, Germanic are also taken into account. A detailed semantic map is offered showing the relationships between the individual types of middle-voice reflexives, and also paths of diachronic development. One of the main problems singled out for discussion is the argument structure of middle voice reflexives. While anticausatives reflect a valency-reducing operation, the middle-voice constructions discussed in this article do not. In fact, a good case can be made for an inflectional view of these reflexives, and voice would be the most natural notional domain to accommodate them.
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Cited by
Cited by 6 other publications
Dom, Sebastian, Leonid Kulikov & Koen Bostoen
2018.
Valency-decreasing derivations and quasi-middles in Bantu: A typological perspective.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 36:3
► pp. 165 ff.

Holvoet, Axel
2018.
On so-called converse reflexives in Slavic and Baltic.
Zeitschrift für Slawistik 63:3
► pp. 373 ff.

Mitkovska, Liljana & Eleni Bužarovska
2021.
Quasi-passive reflexive constructions: Bridging autonomous and passive situations.
Linguistic Typology 25:2
► pp. 303 ff.

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