Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies

14 • Reflexives

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Abstract

Reflexivization is a valency-changing strategy that diminishes the base verb’s valency. In a prototypical reflexive construction, the base verb targeted by reflexivization is a transitive verb whose subject and object are the same entity, which simultaneously covers two grammatical roles (exactly, subject and object) and two thematic functions that may change according to the verb’s semantics (agent and patient, experiencer and theme, …). Reflexives are conceptually very close to reciprocals (see Lesson 3). In fact, in a reciprocal construction, two participants equally act upon each other and, therefore, are both equally agent and patient (or other thematic functions). In other words, what brings reflexives and reciprocals together is the agent and patient’s co-referentiality. For this reason, in many languages reflexives and reciprocals are expressed identically (Payne 1997, 198-203).


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Published Sept. 4, 2024 | Language: en

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Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-861-3/014


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