Cover not available
Part of
Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 101–132

Chapter 5
Causality, comitativity, contrastivity, and selfhood

A view from the left periphery and the vP periphery

 | National Tsing Hua University
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
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.05tsa
References (58)
References
Aoun, Joseph and Y.-H. Audrey Li. 1993. On some Differences between Chinese and Japanese Wh-Elements. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 265–272.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 2005. Extended doubling and the VP periphery. Probus 171, 1–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bickerton, Derek. 1987. He himself – Anaphor, pronoun, or …? Linguistic Inquiry 18, 345–348.Google Scholar
Bouchard, Denis. 1984. On the Content of Empty Categories. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Bromberger, Sylvain. 1992. On What We Know We Don’t Know. Chicago University Press & Center for Study of Language and Information, Stanford.Google Scholar
Browning, M. A. 1993. Adverbial Reflexives. NELS 23(1): 83–94.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S. 1991. On the Typology of Wh-questions. Ph.D.Diss., MIT.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1989. A Semantics for Unaccusatives and its Syntactic Consequences. Ms., Cornell University.Google Scholar
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
. 2001. Derivation by Phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A Life in Language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1988. On Si Constructions and the Theory of Arb. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 521–581.Google Scholar
. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Robin and Ian Roberts. 1993. A Computational Model of Language Learnability and Language Change. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 299–345.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon and Li-May Sung. 1990. Principles and Parameters of Long-Distance Reflexives. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 1–22.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter and Li-May Sung. 1994. Head Movement and Long Distance Reflexives. Linguistic Inquiry 25: 355–406.Google Scholar
Eckardt, Regine. 2001. Reanalyzing selbest. Natural Language Semantics 9, 371–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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
Gast, Volker and Peter Siemund. 2004. Rethinking the relation between Intensifiers and Reflexives. Ms., Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Hamburg.Google Scholar
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
. 1990. Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
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
. 2005. Agentive Selbst and other Instantiations of the Identity Function in German. Ms., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.Google Scholar
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 logoGoogle Scholar
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
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
Jayaseelan, K. A. 1997. Anaphors as Pronouns. Studia Linguistica 51, 186–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1988. Romance se/si. GLOW newsletter 20.Google Scholar
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
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 logoGoogle Scholar
Lü, Shuxiang. 1980. Xian Dai Han Yu Ba Bai Ci [Eight Hundred Words of Modern Chinese]. Shangwu Publishers.Google Scholar
Manzini, Maria Rita. 1986. On Italian si. In H. Borer (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 19, 241–262. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Marantz, Alec. 1984. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pan, Haihua. 1997. Constraints on Reflexivization in Mandarin Chinese. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English: a Study in Subatomic Semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 1995. Thematic Relations and Arguments. Linguistic Inquiry 26, 635–62.Google Scholar
Pesetsky, David. 1995. Zero Syntax: Experiencer and Cascades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1998. Wh-in-situ in the Framework of the Minimalist Program. Natural Language Semantics 6, 29–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1997. Syntactic Effects of Lexical Operations: Reflexives and Unaccusatives. OTS Working Papers in Linguistics. University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
. 2000. The Theta System: Syntactic Realization of Verbal Concepts. OTS working papers in linguistics. University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
. 2002. The Theta System: An Overview. Theoretical Linguistics 28(3), 229–290.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya and Eric Reuland. 1993. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 657–720.Google Scholar
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 logoGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Elements of Grammar, ed. L. Haegeman, 281–338. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian and Anna Roussou. 1999. A Formal Approach to Grammaticalization. Ms., University of Stuttgart and University of Wales, Bangor. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1985. Association with Focus. Ph.D.diss., University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
. 1992. A Theory of Focus Interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1, 75–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shlonsky, Ur and Gabriela Soare. 2011. Where’s ‘Why’? Linguistic Inquiry 42(4), 651–669. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siemund, Peter. 2000. Intensifiers: A Comparison of English and German. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sportiche, Dominique. 1998. Partitions and Atoms of Clause Structure: Subjects, Agreement, Case and Clitics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tang, C.-C. Jane. 1989. Chinese Reflexives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7, 93–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1990. Chinese Phrase Structure and the Extended X’-theory. Ph.D.diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Tsai, W.-T. Dylan. 1994. On Economizing the Theory of A-bar Dependencies. Ph.D.diss., MIT.Google Scholar
. 1999a. On Lexical Courtesy. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8, 39–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 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
. 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
. 2008. Left Periphery and How-Why Alternations. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17, 83–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Basso, Renato Miguel & Elisa Anju Rodrigues
2024. Sobre a semântica de 'sozinho'. Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos 66 ► pp. e024005 ff. DOI logo
Łukasz Jędrzejowski & Carla Umbach
2023. Non-Interrogative Subordinate Wh-Clauses, DOI logo
Liao, Hsiu-Chen Daphne
2021. A unified semantic analysis of Chinese adverbialziji. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學 22:4 ► pp. 513 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 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.