Light and heavy reflexives (1). From: Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the languagesciences | Date: May 1, 2004| Author: | COPYRIGHT 2004 Walter de Gruyter und Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Abstract

Haiman (1983) has argued that the phonological weight of reflexives within many languages is determined by the type of verb that they are coupled with. Specifically, he has claimed that reflexives which occur with "introverted" verbs denoting "actions which one generally performs upon one's self" tend to be phonologically lighter than reflexives which occur with "extroverted" verbs denoting "actions which the subject usually performs towards others." Contra Haiman, Kemmer (1993) has argued that light and heavy reflexive marking is determined by the degree to which ...