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Reflexives and resultatives: some differences between English and German

โœ Scribed by Oya, Toshiaki


Book ID
111935927
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Year
2002
Tongue
English
Weight
135 KB
Volume
40
Category
Article
ISSN
0024-3949

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โœฆ Synopsis


In resultative constructions formed with so-called unergative verbs, the distribution of the reflexive pronouns is different in English and German. In the cases of resultatives formed with verbs that include information about movement and resultant locational phrases, a reflexive pronoun need not occur in English, but it must be present in German. Furthermore, the range of unergative verbs occurring in this construction is different in these languages. In German, resultative constructions may be formed with verbs of activities that express the subject's maintenance of a spatial configuration. It is argued that these differences in English and German are attributed to the availability of the reflexive pronoun in constructions expressing body activities. Since German possesses a weak reflexive pronoun that is compatible with predicates expressing body activities, resultative constructions of the language can describe body activities that take place within the sphere of the subject. In contrast, the reflexive pronoun in English is basically a strong form and it occurs in resultative constructions when it bears the patient role in the sense of Jackendoff (1990).


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