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Article published In:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2019
Edited by Janine Berns and Elena Tribushinina
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 36] 2019
► pp. 176–191
Part II: Selected papers presented at the Dutch Annual Linguistics Day of 2019

Emphatic reflexives as part-structure modifiers

 | Utrecht University
The standard analysis of emphatic reflexives assumes that they are focused expressions of identity in all their uses (e.g. Gast 2006). On the basis of semantic and prosodic data, I argue that exclusive adverbial emphatic reflexives in Dutch and English should instead be analyzed as expressions excluding certain participants from the modified event (“P-exclusives”). The proposed analysis is based on Moltmann’s (2004) account of the part-structure modifier ‘alone’, and avoids a number of problems that the standard analysis has when applied to these data.
Keywords: emphatic reflexives, part-structure modifiers, focus, modification, agentivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The standard account of ERs
  • 2.Properties of exclusive adverbial emphatic reflexives
    • 2.1Prosodic properties
    • 2.2Instrumental readings
    • 2.3Modification
  • 3.Part-structure modifiers
    • 3.1P-exclusives
    • 3.2Moltmann’s theory of part-structure modifiers
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 5 November 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00031.tel
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