The Passive of Reflexive Verbs
and its Implications for Theories of Binding and Case∗
Version 05.07.2012
Florian Schäfer
1. Introduction
In most languages, reflexive and reciprocal verbs do not passivize. However, German (1) and
Icelandic (2) do allow the formation of passives of reflexive and reciprocal verbs. (I will use
the shorthand PoRs for ‘Passives of Reflexive/Reciprocal Verbs’.)1/2
(1)
Zuerst wird
sich geküsst, später dann geheiratet.
first becomes REFL kissed, later then married
‘First people kiss each other, then they marry.’
(2)
(??)Það ar baðað sig
á laugardögum.
expl was bathed REFL.ACC on saturdays
‘People took a bath on Saturdays.’ (Sigurðsson 1989:355, fn. 60)3
In order to identify the basic properties of PoRs and the theoretical questions posed by their
existence, consider the German active-passive pair in (3) involving the reflexive use of the
verb ‘waschen’ (to wash). As in ordinary passives, the lexical verb in (3b) appears as passive
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the Universities of Lund, Cologne, HU Berlin and Stuttgart
as well as at the GGS 2010 (FU Berlin), the workshop ‘Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces’
(2010, University of Vienna), Nels 41 (2010, University of Pennsylvania), the workshop ‘Variation and Change
in Argument Realization’ (2010, University of Naples), the workshop ‘Verb Meaning, Event Semantics and
Argument Structure’ (2010, Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, Barcelona), the workshop ‘Approaches to the
Lexicon’ (2011, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and CGSW 26 (2011, University of Amsterdam). I thank the
audiences for their comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Tor Åfarli, Artemis Alexiadou, Kirsti
Koch Christensen, Martin Everaert, Thórhallur Eythórsson, Arild Hestvik, Jóhannes Jónsson, Hans Kamp, Terje
Lohndal, Marcel Pitteroff, Halldor Sigurðsson, Torgrim Solstad and Jan-Wouter Zwart for their comments and
help. I am also very grateful to three anonymous JCGL reviewers and the editors for their insightful comments
and suggestions. All shortcomings and errors are mine. This research was supported by a DFG grant to the
project B6 ‘Underspecification in Voice systems and the syntax-morphology interface’ of the Collaborative
Research Center 732 ‘Incremental Specification in Context’ at the Universität Stuttgart.
1
I use the following abbreviations: NOM - nominative, GEN - genitive, DAT - dative, ACC - accusative, REFL
- simple reflexive pronoun, REFL-SELF - intensified reflexive pronoun, expl - expletive, NEU - neuter, FEM feminine, MSC - masculine, SG - singular, PL - plural, PAST - Past Tense, PRTL - verbal particle, 1/2/3 1st/2nd/3rd person.
2
Lithuanian is one further language for which PoRs are attested (Geniušienė 1987, Wiemer 2006). Examples
such as in (i) are sometimes cited to show that English allows PoRs (Baker et al. 1989, Collins 2005). However,
it has been argued that the pronoun-self element in examples like (i) is not an anaphor but an intensified pronoun
(Baker 1995, Reed 2011). In any case, the phenomenon is much more restricted in English than in German,
Icelandic or Lithuanian. Note in this connection, that the example in (i) would be an instance of a ‘personal PoR’
involving a nominative DP and that the predicate ‘x keeps sth. for oneself’ is inherently reflexive. See section 8
for relevant discussion.
(i) Such privileges should be kept to oneself.
3
Sigurðsson (1989) is one of the first who mentions the existence of PoRs in Icelandic. Nevertheless, he marks
the example in (2) with two question marks. Eythórsson (2008, ex. 43b) mentions that most speakers totally
accept this example. See section 3 for a detailed discussion of Icelandic PoRs.
∗
participle and the passive auxiliary werden (to become) is used.4 The external argument
disappears (but it can reappear in a by-phrase as will be shown later).5 The PoRs in (1), (2)
and (3b) lack a nominative DP triggering verbal agreement. In fact, most PoRs are instances
of ‘impersonal passives’. Related to this is the observation that the reflexive pronoun does not
change its shape under passivization: it does not shift to nominative as referential objects
would but it keeps its accusative. While this is not easy to see in German, Icelandic, which
has a case-inflected paradigm of reflexive pronouns, shows this clearly (cf. (2); see section 3
for a more detailed discussion).6
(3)
a. Hier haben die
Römer sich
gewaschen.
Here have the.NOM Romans REFL.ACC washed
b. Hier wurde sich (von den Römern) gewaschen.
Here became REFL (by the Romans) washed
‘Here, the Romans washed.’
PoRs immediately pose two questions concerning Binding Theory and Case Theory:
Q1 Binding Theory: How is Principle A of the Binding Theory satisfied in PoRs, i.e.
what is the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun? (Note that the reflexive in Icelandic PoRs
does not qualify as a logophor and that German lacks logophors altogether (e.g. Kiss
2001.)
Q2 Case Theory: How is accusative case on the reflexive pronoun licensed in PoRs? It
stands in contradiction to Burzio’s Generalization, which predicts that passives, due to the
absorption of the external argument, cannot license structural accusative case.
In the course of the present paper, I will propose answers to these questions. The paper is
organized as follows: In section 2 and 3, I will investigate which verb classes allow the
formation of PoRs in German and Icelandic respectively. As it turns out, PoRs are subject to a
semantic or conceptual restriction on the underlying reflexive verb in both languages. In
section 4, I will illustrate that PoRs are not available in other Germanic languages such as
Dutch or Norwegian although these languages have a very similar reflexive system and
although these languages do, in principle, form impersonal passives. In section 5, I will turn
to the theoretical challenges posed by PoRs including Q1 and Q2 above. As we will see,
present theories of reflexivity cannot account for all properties identified for PoRs. In section
6, I will turn to my own analysis of PoRs. There I will offer an answer to Q1 which builds on
the idea that ordinary anaphoric binding depends on a syntactic AGREE-relation between a ccommanding DP-antecedent and the anaphor. In the absence of such a DP-antecedent (as in
impersonal PoRs) some languages allow Default φ-feature Agreement to value the anaphor.
This purely formal repair strategy will be related to the semantic or conceptual restriction on
the reflexive predicates underlying PoRs identified in section 2 and 3. To answer Q2, I will
4
Crucially, the reflexive element itself does not reflect the passivization process. PoRs are, therefore, not
“reflexive passives” of the Romance or Slavic type as discussed, for example, in Cinque (1988).
5
When no by-phrase is present, I paraphrase PoRs as active sentences with the subject ‘people'. This is not the
only possible interpretation for the implicit external argument of PoRs, that is, PoRs do not necessarily have a
generic flavor. More concretely, the possible interpretations of the implicit external argument of PoRs do not
differ from the interpretations of the implicit external argument in ordinary impersonal passives. For some
discussion of the latter in Icelandic, see Sigurðsson & Egerland (2009). Their findings carry over to German.
6
I concentrate on passives involving reflexive pronouns such as German ‘sich’ which can have a reflexive and a
reciprocal reading. PoRs can also be found with reciprocal pronouns such as German ‘einander’ (each other).
While I have not studied the latter in detail, it seems to me that the same lexical semantic restrictions hold for
them as identified in section 2 for PoRs involving the reflexive pronoun ‘sich’.
2
develop a specific version of a dependent case approach where dependent case can be
triggered not only by the presence of a nominative DP but also by Default Agreement as we
find it in impersonal PoRs. In section 7, I will update some technical aspects of this analysis
to explain the historical relation between PoRs and the so-called ‘New Passive’ (also called
‘New Construction’ or ‘New Impersonal’) in Icelandic. In section 8, I will investigate the
rarer cases of personal PoRs, i.e. PoRs that involve a nominative DP which, however, does
not act as antecedent for the reflexive pronoun. Section 9 is dedicated to the discussion of
some open issues related to the analysis of PoRs developed here. Section 10 concludes.
Before I turn to a more detailed investigation of PoRs, let me quickly provide some further
motivation that the formation of PoRs is a productive phenomenon in German (on Icelandic,
see section 3). In fact, PoRs were often judged as ungrammatical in the theoretical literature
on German (e.g. Reis 1982:20f, Haider 1985, Kiss 2003:fn 15, Bierwisch 2006). However,
other authors recognized that this view is not generally correct, and, more concretely,
acknowledged the formation of PoRs as a productive option provided by the grammar of
German. First examples and preliminary discussions of PoRs can be found in Wunderlich
(1985:222), Abraham (1986), Fanselow (1987, 1991), Sells, Zaenen & Zec (1987),
Grewendorf (1988), Frey (1993) or Müller & Sternefeld (1993). Plank (1993) and Vater
(1995) are the first who investigate PoRs in more depth and they show that PoRs are, in
principle, accepted among speakers of German (see also Ágel 1997, Müller 1999 and Hundt
2002 for more detailed discussions).
Three further observations suggest that PoRs are a common phenomenon in German. First,
PoRs should not be classified as substandard. The examples in (4) and (5) are from the
evening news of the German public-law television (Tagesschau, ARD) whose anchormen are
known for their high language standard. Second, while PoRs are probably more frequent in
spoken language, they can also be found in written texts. The example in (6) is from the
online version of a weekly German magazine (Spiegel online). Lastly, PoRs are not a recent
invention. Behagel (1924, II:214) provides some Middle High German examples.
(4)
Während sich heute über Sonne gefreut werden konnte,
while
REFL today about sun
rejoiced become could,
muss morgen mit Regen gerechnet werden.
must tomorrow with rain calculated become
‘While today the sun could be enjoyed, rain is expected for tomorrow.’
(5)
Bei der Kieler
Koalitionskrise wird
sich schon
at the Kieler.ADJ coalition-crisis becomes REFL already
gar nicht mehr bemüht, die taktischen Mätzchen zu verstecken.
really no longer bestirred the tactical tricks
to hide
‘Politicians involved in the coalition crisis in the regional capital Kiel do not even try
any longer to hide the tactical tricks.’
(6)
Bei der ARD wurde sich eiligst für den Fauxpas entschuldigt.
at the ARD became REFL hastily for the faux-pas apologized
‘The people responsible at the ARD hastily apologized for the faux pas.’
2. A semantic/conceptual restriction on the formation of PoRs
In section 1, I showed that German allows the formation of PoRs. However, a closer
examination reveals that PoRs are restricted by a semantic or conceptual parameter. To
introduce this parameter, it is useful to make a short detour to a language with a so-called
‘two-form reflexive system’ such as Dutch in (7-9). As is well known, Dutch has two
3
reflexive pronouns, the simple reflexive pronoun zich and the complex reflexive pronoun
zichzelf. Furthermore, Dutch makes a morpho-syntactic distinction between three classes of
reflexive verbs, i.e. verbs where the subject binds a reflexive pronoun in the direct object
position. Crucially, the morphological distinction reflects a semantic or conceptual difference
(see Kemmer (1993) and references there). The following verb-classes can be identified:
Inherently reflexive (or inherently reciprocal) verbs: These verbs do not allow replacing
the reflexive pronoun with a referential DP. Furthermore, only the simple reflexive pronoun is
allowed:
(7)
Jan schaamt zich/*zichzelf/*Marie.
John shames REFL/REFL-SELF/Mary
‘John is ashamed.’
Naturally reflexive (or naturally reciprocal) verbs: With these verbs, the reflexive pronoun
can be replaced by a referential DP. In out-of-the-blue contexts, the simple reflexive is
strongly preferred. (The complex reflexive becomes acceptable under strong focus.)
(8)
a. Jan waste zich/??zichzelf/Marie.
John washed REFL/ REFL-SELF/Mary
‘John washed (Mary).’
b. Jan scheerde zich/??zichzelf/Peter.
John shaved REFL/REFL-SELF/Peter
‘John shaved (Peter).’
Naturally reflexive verbs come from a number of semantic subclasses which all represent
events that carry “… inherent in their meaning [...] the lack of expectation that the two
semantic roles they make reference to will refer to distinct entities …” (Kemmer 1993:58).
So-called “grooming verbs” such as ‘shave’, ‘wash’ or ‘dress’ form one main subgroup of
naturally reflexive verbs. Naturally reciprocal verbs involve, for example, verbs of social
(‘meet’) or affectionate (‘kiss’) events but also verbs of antagonistic events (‘fight’). The
complete list of naturally reflexive/reciprocal verb classes proposed by Kemmer (1993) is
given and exemplified in appendix 1.
Naturally disjoint verbs (called other directed verbs in Koenig & Vezzosi 2004): Again, a
referential DP can replace the reflexive pronoun but the complex reflexive is strongly
preferred to express binding. In opposition to naturally reflexive verbs, we can say that these
verbs express events which carry the expectation that the two semantic roles they make
reference to will refer to distinct entities (e.g. ‘hate’, ‘accuse’, ‘kill’, …).
(9)
Zij haat ??zich/zichzelf/Peter.
She hates REFL/REFL-SELF/Peter
‘John hates himself/Peter.’
German differs from Dutch in that the simple reflexive pronoun ‘sich’ can be used with all
three of the verb classes above (10a-c). The addition of the intensifier ‘selbst’ (self), while
often possible, is hardly ever obligatory in German. Therefore, German does not make a
(obligatory) morphological distinction between inherently/naturally reflexive verbs and
naturally disjoint verbs.
4
(10) a. Hans hasst sich/Maria.
John hates REFL/Maria
‘John hates himself/Mary.’
b. Hans wäscht sich/Maria.
John washes REFL/Maria
‘John washes himself/Mary.’
c. Hans schämt sich/*Maria.
John shames REFL/Maria
‘John is ashamed/ashames Mary.’
(naturally disjoint)
(naturally reflexive)
(inherently reflexive)
While German differs from Dutch in not making a morphological distinction between
inherently/naturally reflexive verbs and naturally disjoint verbs, it turns out that the difference
between these verb classes is, nevertheless, relevant in the grammar of German: The same
lexical-semantic or conceptual aspects that determine the distribution of simple and complex
reflexives in Dutch determine the formation of PoRs in German: PoRs are overwhelmingly
formed with inherently and naturally reflexive verbs; naturally disjoint verbs are very rarely
found in PoRs. Such a semantic restriction on the formation of PoRs has already been
suggested in Abraham (1986), Sells & al. (1987), Fanselow (1991), Kaufmann (2001) and
especially Ágel (1997), but it has never been empirically corroborated. Here, I present the
results of two empirical studies that I undertook to confirm this proposal.
First, I searched in Google for PoRs involving verbs of the three different verb classes.
Inherently reflexive verbs and naturally reflexive verbs led to a huge number of matches
involving PoRs. To identify naturally reflexive verbs, I used the classification in Kemmer
(1993: chapter 3, 4), which involves 13 subclasses of naturally reflexive verbs (see appendix
1). For each of these subclasses, I selected one verb and checked it on Google. The result was
positive; i.e. for each subclass, already the very first verb that I had randomly selected lead to
a number of matches where the verb was used in a PoR. A possible search query for the verb
‘waschen’ (to wash) would be “sich gewaschen wird” (REFL washed becomes) which brings
about 12 hits (16.01.2012). As a comparison, I checked for a number of naturally disjoint
verbs whether they form PoRs. It turned out that these verbs only very rarely form such
passives. Below, I illustrate these findings with some examples. The full list of verbs tested
and the number of PoRs found with them via Google queries are given in appendix 1.
In A, we see the results of two inherently reflexive verbs. In B.1 and B.2, we find the
results from two verbs taken from two of the thirteen subclasses of naturally
reflexive/reciprocal verbs identified by Kemmer (1993). In C, we see the results for two
naturally disjoint verbs. Note that the numbers of matches given below for PoRs of inherently
and naturally reflexive verbs make reference to only one search string/word order, either
‘auxiliary REFL participle’ or ‘REFL participle auxiliary’ and one time specification (present
or past tense) on the auxiliary. That is, alternative search strings differing in word order or
tense would have lead to many more hits. Importantly, the numbers of hits for naturally
disjoint verbs involve much more search string. Specifically, for each of the verbs in C, I
searched for (i) PoRs involving a reflexive pronoun (sich/REFL), an intensified reflexive
pronoun (sich selbst/REFL-SELF), and a reciprocal pronoun (einander/each other), (ii) PoRs
in two different word orders (for matrix and embedded sentences), and (iii) PoRs in the
present as well as in the past tense. Despite this 12:1 ratio of search strings I found
significantly fewer PoRs with naturally disjoint verbs than with naturally and inherently
reflexive/reciprocal verbs.
A. inherently reflexive/reciprocal verb
‘sich benehmen’ (to behave): search string “sich benommen wird” - 54 matches
5
(11) Es ist schlimm wie sich benommen wird.
It is bad
how REFL behaved becomes
‘It is bad how people behave.’
‘sich streiten’ (to quarrel): search string “sich gestritten wird” - more than 100 matches
(12) Ich verstehe echt nicht, wieso sich gestritten wird.
I understand really not why REFL quarreled becomes
‘I really do not understand why people quarrel with each other.’
B.1 grooming verbs
‘waschen’ (to wash): search string “wird sich gewaschen” - more than 100 matches
(13) Dann wird
sich gewaschen, schön gemacht, umgezogen
Then becomes REFL washed,
nice made,
clothes-changed
und die Zähne geputzt.
and the teeth brushed
‘Then people wash, make themselves up, change their clothes and brush their teeth.’
B.2 verbs of translational motion
‘bewegen’ (to move): search string “wird sich bewegt” - more than 100 matches
(14) im Musikunterricht wird
sich bewegt, im Kunstunterricht wird
in.the music-class
becomes REFL moved, in.the art-class
becomes
der Pinsel geschwungen.
the brush swung
‘In the music class, people move, in the art class, people swing the brush.’
C. naturally disjoint (transitive) verbs
‘schneiden’ (to cut): search string for example “sich geschnitten wurde” - 3 matches
(15) Dazu
lagen auch noch Glasscherben im Hauptpool,
In-addition lay also even glas-fragments in.the main-pool,
an denen sich geschnitten wurde!
at which REFL cut
became
‘In addition, there was broken glas in the main pool at which poeple cut themselves.’
‘zerstören’ (to destroy): Search string for example “sich (selbst) zerstört wird” - 0 matches
These findings (see appendix 1 for more verbs tested) further confirm the existence of PoRs
in German. Furthermore, they seem to support the claim by Ágel (1997) that basically only
inherently reflexive and naturally reflexive verbs form PoRs. While I found some PoRs
involving naturally disjoint verbs, their number was much lower than the number of PoRs
with inherently/naturally reflexive verbs.7
7
Hundt (2002) provides a list of 95 modern and 26 historical examples of PoRs. 7 of his examples involve verbs
that might be best classified as naturally disjoint. Interestingly, such counterexamples to the above generalization
very often contain the adverb ‘gegenseitig’ (mutually) as in (i) which necessarily triggers a reciprocal
interpretation, i.e. the addition of this adverb to a naturally disjoint verb results in an inherently reciprocal
context (see Geurts 2004:4 for a similar effect in Dutch). Other counterexamples turn out to be from specialized
communities (see fn. 60 in appendix 1 for an example) or to involve irony (as if the event were naturally
reflexive).
6
However, the results of a corpus study like the one above might be misleading because it is
not clear whether we encounter a difference in grammaticality or acceptability or rather one in
frequency. The problem is that, in general, passives are less frequent than active sentences
and, more importantly, naturally reflexive verbs show up in a reflexive construal more often
than naturally disjoint verbs (see Haspelmath 2008, Hendriks et al. 2008, Bouma & Spenader
2009). The combination of these two frequency effects might be responsible for the absence
(or very low number) of PoRs with naturally disjoint verbs. PoRs of naturally disjoint verbs
might, therefore, not be ungrammatical or unacceptable but just very infrequent.
Therefore, we need to back up the above findings and test whether there is a difference in
the grammaticality/acceptability between the reflexive active use and the reflexive passive
use of the three verb classes under consideration. To do this, I ran a questionnaire study with
first-year students at the University of Stuttgart. This study contained 48 target sentences all
of which had the reflexive pronoun ‘sich’ in the direct object position. 24 of these target
sentences were reflexive active sentences, the other 24 sentences were the impersonal passive
counterparts of these active sentences (i.e., PoRs). The subject of the active sentences was
either the 3rd person plural pronoun ‘sie’ (they) or the singular impersonal pronoun ‘man’
(one). The passive sentences had no by-phrase. The 24 active-passive pairs included four
inherently reflexive verbs (i-ref), four inherently reciprocal verbs (i-rec), four naturally
reflexive verbs (n-ref) and four naturally reciprocal verbs (n-rec) as well as eight naturally
disjoint verbs, four of them used in a reflexive construal (nd-ref) and four of them used in a
reciprocal construal (nd-rec). The test sentences are given in appendix 2. These 48 target
sentences were arranged in two questionnaires with 24 sentences each so that no verb
occurred twice in one questionnaire (i.e., each verb occurred either in the active or in the
passive in one questionnaire). Both questionnaires were filled with the same 48 distractors so
that the ratio of test sentences and distractors was 1:2.8 Furthermore, both questionnaires were
presented in two randomized orders each. Each sentence was read by 24 speakers, who judged
it on a scale from 1 (totally acceptable) to 7 (totally unacceptable). Table 1 below shows the
mean results of the six verb classes in the active and in the passive.
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
i-ref
i-rec
n-ref
n-rec
nd-ref
nd-rec
active
1,56
1,87
1,68
1,66
2,26
1,79
passive
2,67
3,21
3,1
3,19
5,21
4,66
TABLE 1
The results in the above table lead to the following conclusions:
(i) Hier wird
sich nicht gegenseitig umgebracht.
Here becomes REFL not mutually killed
‘People do not kill each other here.’
8
16 of the 48 distractors were grammatical, 16 were marked (marked word order) and 16 were plainly
ungrammatical. 36 of the distractors were not reflexive; of these, 18 were active and 18 were passive sentences.
12 distractor sentences were reflexive: three of them were active, grammatical sentences, three of them were
active and marked and three of them were active but ungrammatical sentences. Finally, three distractor sentences
were plainly ungrammatical PoRs. For the calculation of the results, only subjects were considered who did not
wrongly classify more than two of the 16 plainly ungrammatical control sentences as acceptable (i.e. 4 or better).
7
(i) First of all, we see that it does not matter for the acceptability of active as well as passive
sentences (PoRs) whether the reflexive pronoun gets a reflexive or a reciprocal interpretation
(that is the acceptance rates in the columns 1 and 2, 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 are approximately the
same).
(ii) In the active, the different verb classes were judged equally acceptable. That is, inherently
reflexive/reciprocal verbs receive the same acceptance as naturally reflexive/reciprocal verbs
and naturally disjoint verbs under a reflexive/reciprocal use.9
(iii) PoRs are generally less acceptable than the corresponding active counterparts. I take this
general result to be (at least partly)10 independent from reflexivization. It is known that
ordinary passives (with by-phrases) are judged as less acceptable than their active
counterparts in out-of-the-blue contexts (at least if both arguments are animate; see
Greenbaum 1977 for English, see Murphy 2007 for English and German). Furthermore, since
the PoRs in the above questionnaire study were truncated and lacked by-phrase, they were
less informative than their active counterparts and this probably also influenced their out-ofthe-blue acceptability.
(iv) The most important observation for our purposes is that PoRs of naturally disjoint verbs
are much less acceptable than PoRs involving inherently and naturally reflexive/reciprocal
verbs. PoRs of the latter two verb classes, on the other hand, receive approximately the same
acceptance.
These results are in accordance with the results of the corpus study above. The experiment
also adds in an important way to such corpus data as it shows that the distribution of PoRs
across verb classes cannot be explained away in terms of the frequency of reflexive uses. To
conclude then, both studies confirm the claim by Ágel (1997) that inherently and naturally
reflexive/reciprocal verbs enter the formation of PoRs in German without problem while
naturally disjoint verbs are basically out. Note, however, that in my analysis of PoRs in
section 6, I argue that PoRs of naturally disjoint verbs are not formally ungrammatical but just
hard to interpret (i.e. unacceptable).11
With this background, we can turn to a more detailed discussion of PoRs in Icelandic.
3. PoRs in Icelandic
Sigurðsson (1989:355, fn. 60) is one of the earliest sources for PoRs in Icelandic. He provides
the active-passive pairs in (16) and (17) ((17b) repeats example (2) above). While Sigurðsson
marks (16b) with one and (17b) with two question marks, Eythórsson (2008) judges these
examples as totally acceptable (no question mark) and adds that most speakers he consulted
agreed with him. (Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002:121, fn. 12) also report a study where only
1 out of 24 speakers judged (16b) as ungrammatical. It is interesting to note that all 24
speakers were from Inner Reykjavík (see below for discussion why this is relevant)). Note
that the verb in (16) is inherently reflexive, and the verb in (17) is naturally reflexive. Note
furthermore, that Icelandic reflexive pronouns have a case-inflected paradigm (sig-ACC, sérDAT, sín-GEN). Icelandic, therefore, provides clear morphological indication that the
9
Note that all test sentences involved the simple reflexive pronoun ‘sich’ without the intensivier ‘selbst’ (self).
This supports the claim that this intensifier is not obligatory in German.
10
Árnadóttir et al. (2011) suggest that Icelandic PoRs, while in principle grammatical, receive less acceptance
than impersonal passives without a reflexive pronoun. I have not checked this for German.
11
Thereby the analysis presented in section 6 will allow it that PoRs of basically naturally disjoint verbs become
acceptable if a specific context guides a successful interpretation of PoRs because it strongly suggests that the
implicit external argument of the passive and the anaphor in object position should be covalued. This then
provides an explanation why we find such verbs very rarely in corpora (see also fn. 7 and fn. 60 in appendix 1).
8
reflexive pronoun in PoRs keeps the case that it has in the active. In (16), this is lexical dative,
but in (17) this is structural accusative.12
(16) a. Börnin
leika sér
allan daginn.
the.children play REFL.DAT all the.day
‘The children are playing all day.’
b. (?)Það var leikið sér
allan daginn.
expl was played REFL.DAT all the.day
(17) a. Fólkið
baðaði sig
á laugardögum.
the.people bathed REFL.ACC on Saturdays
‘The people took a bath on Saturdays.’
b. (??)Það var baðað sig
á laugardögum.
expl was bathed REFL.ACC on Saturdays
Besides the fact that examples of Icelandic PoRs discussed in the literature typically involve
inherently or naturally reflexive verbs, there is at least some further indication that Icelandic
PoRs are restricted by the same semantic/conceptual parameter identified for German in the
last section. The relevant data suggesting this are taken from a questionnaire study by Maling
& Sigurjónsdóttir (2002). Before we can take a closer look at their examples, some comments
are necessary. Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir are only indirectly concerned with PoRs but
investigate a broader phenomenon of Icelandic syntax, which they call the ‘New
Construction’ or ‘New Impersonal’. Other authors use the term ‘New Passive’, a terminology
that I will adopt in this article (see the next footnote). This construction, which is a recent
innovation in Icelandic, shares with the canonical passive that the same auxiliary and the
same participle are used and that the external argument is absorbed. It differs, however, from
the canonical passive in that no DP-movement of the internal argument takes place and the
internal argument keeps its structural accusative case.13 (A more detailed discussion of the
New Passive will be provided in section 7). The New Passive is subject to quite some speaker
variation. As Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002) show most adolescents (15-16 year old
students) living outside the capital Reykjavík accept it, while adolescents living inside of
Reykjavík accept it less and adults typically reject it. All speakers of Icelandic, on the other
hand, accept the canonical passive. These differences between the canonical passive and the
New Passive are exemplified below where (18a) is a canonical passive and (18b) is a New
Passive. The numbers to the right of these examples express how many speakers within a
group accepted this sentence. Elsewhere refers to adolescents living outside of inner
Reykjavík, inner Rvik refers to adolescents living inside of Reykjavík and the third group
represents the judgements of adults across the whole country (only binary judgements were
possible in this study (yes, this is something one can say, no this is something one cannot
say)).
12
One might suspect that the accusative form of the Icelandic reflexive pronoun is actually ambiguous between
nominative and accusative. This hypothesis, is, however, not tenable. It has been shown that - independently of
Principle A (i.e. locality) considerations - Icelandic reflexive pronouns are incompatible with nominative
positions (Maling (1984), Everaert (1990); see Rizzi (1990), Woolford (1999) or Tucker (2010) on this so-called
‘anaphor agreement effect’ in other languages. See also section 9. We must, therefore, conclude that the
reflexive in (17b) gets assigned structural accusative case.
13
The question whether the New Passive is a real passive or an impersonal construction with a covert subject
(pro) as proposed by Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002), is still a topic of discussion. I will follow here without
further discussion the argumentation in some recent literature (Barðal & Molnár 2003, Eyþórsson 2008, Jónsson
2009, Sigurðsson 2011, Árnadóttir et al. 2011) that the New Passive is a real passive in that the external
argument is absorbed in the same way as it is in canonical passives. Therefore, I use the term ‘New Passive’.
9
(18) a. Ólafur
var rekinn úr
skólanum. 00
a. *
Olaf.NOM was driven from the.school
a. *
‘Olaf was expelled from school.’
b. Það var beðið mig
að vaska upp. 0
a.
expl was asked me.ACC to wash up
a.
‘I was asked to do the dishes.’
Elsewhere
99%
Inner Rvík
96%
Adults
99%
Elsewhere
74%
Inner Rvík
47%
Adults
8%
PoRs share with the New Passive that the object does not move to subject position and keeps
its structural accusative case. However, the literature also pointed out that PoRs are not
genuine instances of the New Passive (Sigurðsson 1989, Eythórsson 2008, Árnadóttir et al.
2011, Jónsson 2011). On the one hand, PoRs can be traced further back in history than the
New Passive (Árnadóttir et al. 2011) and, on the other hand, many speakers who do not
accept the New Passive with non-reflexive verbs accept PoRs (Eythórsson 2008, Árnadóttir et
al. 2011). The latter conclusion can also be drawn from the questionnaire study by Maling &
Sigurjónsdóttir (2002), which shows that PoRs receive much better acceptance than New
Passives with a referential internal argument. (To see this compare the judgements in (18b)
with those in (19a-c), (20a) and (21a)) This holds most significantly for adolescents from
within Reykjavík and adults. Nevertheless, many authors have proposed that PoRs might have
been the first step of a grammatical development that lead to the New Passive (e.g. Maling &
Sigurjónsdóttir 2002, Árnadóttir et al. 2011). I will take up and develop this hypothesis in
section 7.
With this background, we can turn to some of the examples from Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir
(2002) involving PoRs. The passive sentences in (19) all involve inherently reflexive verbs
with the simple reflexive pronoun ‘sig’ in object position. The three groups of speakers show
quite the same acceptance rate for each of the three sentences. (Sentence (19c) is for some
reason slightly less acceptable than the other two examples.) Since all three examples are
PoRs with inherently reflexive verbs, I take their acceptance rates as a baseline. The question
is then how acceptable PoRs involving naturally reflexive and naturally disjoint verbs are.
(19) a. Svo var bara drifið sig
á ball.
then was just hurried REFL to the.dance
‘People hurried to the dance.’
(Elsewhere 78% | Inner Rvík 67% | Adults 40%)
b. Það var haldið sig
innan dyra út af óveðrinu.
it was kept REFL in
doors due to bad.weather
‘People remained in the house due to the bad weather.’
(Elsewhere 82% | Inner Rvík 65% | Adults 37%)
c. Það var skoðað sig um
á svæðinu.
it was looked REFL around in the.area
‘People took a look-around in the area.’
(Elsewhere 72% | Inner Rvík 43% | Adults 31%)
The examples in (20) both involve a complex reflexive pronoun embedded in a prepositional
phrase. Although both examples are syntactically identical, the first example receives much
more acceptance than the second one in all three groups of speakers. I want to suggest that the
reason for this difference is that the predicate “X looks at Y in the mirror” is naturally
reflexive (i.e., there is a strong expectation that X=Y), while the predicate “X points at Y in
the picture” is not. Typically, people look at (a representation of) themselves when they look
into a mirror. But there is no expectation that someone points at (a representation of)
herself/himself when s/he points at a person in a picture. This conceptual difference, I claim,
is reflected in the acceptance rates of the two examples.
10
(20) a. Það var horft á sjálfan sig í speglinum.
it was looked at SELF REFL in the.mirror
‘People looked at themselves in the mirror.’
(Elsewhere 58% | Inner Rvík 48% | Adults 34%)
b. Það var bent
á sjálfan sig á myndinni.
it was pointed to SELF REFL in the.picture
‘People pointed at themselves in the picture.’
(Elsewhere 19% | Inner Rvík 11% | Adults 13%)
The same conceptual parameter seems to be at play in the examples in (21) involving
possessive reflexive pronouns. These examples show some syntactic differences. In (21a), the
possessed noun phrase is embedded in a prepositional phrase selected by the verb, in (21b)
and (21c), the possessed noun phrase is the internal argument of the verb and in (21d), the
possessed NP is embedded in a prepositional phrase modifying the internal argument of the
verb.14 These syntactic differences make it hard to draw strong conclusions. In any case, we
see that (21a) is accepted by many more speakers in all three groups than (21b, c, d). Once
again, I suggest that the reason is that “X supports Y’s team” is naturally reflexive (people
typically support their own team) while this is not the case in the other three examples. For
example, it is not more natural to push one’s own sister off the bike than it is to push someone
else’s sister off the bike.15
(21) a. Það var haldið með sínu liði.
it was held with SELF’s team
‘People supported their own team.’
(Elsewhere 63% | Inner Rvík 49% | Adults 36%)
b. Í morgun var hrint systur sinni af hjólinu.
this morning was pushed sister SELF’s off the.bike
‘This morning, people pushed their own sister from the bike.’
(Elsewhere 13% | Inner Rvík 7% | Adults 2%)
c. Það var oft kaffært bróður sinn í sundlauginni.
it
was often dunked brother SELF in the.pool
‘People often dunked their own brother in the pool.’
(Elsewhere 5% | Inner Rvík 3% | Adults 1%)
d. Það var klippt hárið á dúkkunni sinni.
it was cut the.hair on doll
SELF’s
‘People cut the hair of their own doll.’
(Elsewhere 5% | Inner Rvík 2% | Adults 2%)
The examples in (21), if analyzed in the correct way, make an important point about the
nature of the concept ‘natural reflexivity’. I proposed that (21a) is acceptable because there
holds a naturally reflexive relation between an argument of the verb (its implicit external
argument) and the possessor of an NP embedded in a PP selected by the verb. If this
14
A further difference is that the reflexive possessive in (21a) precedes the head noun while it follows the head
noun in (21b-d).
15
Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002:124) suggest that the examples in (21b, c, d) would also be judged as
unnatural if they were presented as active sentences with an overt impersonal subject. I predict, on the other
hand, that such counterparts, even if unnatural, should be much more acceptable in the active than in the passive.
This was at least one of the results of the German questionnaire study reported above. However, an ultimate
answer about the restrictions on Icelandic PoRs would require a similar experiment, an undertaking which I have
to leave for future research.
11
explanation is correct, it follows that ‘natural reflexivity’ cannot always be determined within
a verb’s co-argument domain. More concretely, since possessors are not part of a verb’s
lexical representation, ‘natural reflexivity’ cannot (always) be established in the lexicon but
must be computed at a conceptual level following syntactic computation. It is therefore more
correct to talk about ‘naturally reflexive situations’ (see also the term ‘middle situation type’
in Kemmer 1993).
To summarize this section, there is at least some indication that Icelandic PoRs are
constrained by the same semantic/conceptual parameter as German PoRs. Inherently reflexive
and naturally reflexive expressions receive better acceptance in PoRs than naturally disjoint
expressions. Furthermore, Icelandic shows that ‘natural reflexivity’ is not necessarily a
relation between co-arguments of a verb. (Below, I will argue that the same is the case with
inherent reflexivity). Finally, Icelandic provides clear evidence that the reflexive pronoun in
PoRs indeed keeps the case it has in the corresponding active counterpart. That is, structural
accusative survives in PoRs.16
4. PoRs in other Germanic languages: Dutch and Norwegian
As mentioned in the introduction, PoRs seem to be a rare phenomenon. In fact, German,
Icelandic (and Lithuanian, see fn. 2) are the only languages that I know of which form PoRs
productively. In this section, I exemplify the lack of PoRs in two other Germanic languages,
Dutch and Norwegian. (Here, I discuss the absence of impersonal PoRs in these languages.
My discussion of personal PoRs in section 8 will lead to some modification of the claim that
these languages lack PoRs).
As the Dutch example in (22) and the Norwegian examples in (23) show, PoRs are judged
as ungrammatical in both languages. Note that these examples are ungrammatical even
though (22) involves a naturally reflexive verb and (23a) involves an inherently reflexive
verb. (The verb in (23b) is naturally disjoint).17
16
Müller & Sternefeld (1993:359) try to explain away the case problem of PoRs by stipulating that German
reflexives are immune to Case-absorption simply because they “do not need Case in the first place”. Although
the German reflexive ‘sich’ does not carry overt case morphology, there are arguments which suggest that it has
case. First, ‘sich’ can occur only in accusative or dative positions while in locally bound genitive positions, a 3rd
person pronoun has to be used (e.g. Fanselow 1989, 1991, Burzio 1998). Second, if the antecedent is 1st or 2nd
person, the anaphor is replaced by a 1st or 2nd person pronoun which does show overt case variation (ia-d). Third,
case copying constructions (Fanselow 1991) suggest that accusative is licensed on reflexives (iia, b). Case
copying is not easily applicable in PoRs (for semantic reasons, I would suggest, because such constructions
destroy natural reflexivity). But if German reflexives have case in the active, there is no reason to assume that
they are exempt from case assignment in PoRs.
(i) a. Ich wasche mich.
b. Du wäschst dich.
c. Ich helfe mir.
d. Du hilfst dir.
I wash me.ACC
you wash
you.ACC
I help me.DAT
you help you.DAT
‘I wash’
‘You wash’
‘I help myself’
‘You help yourself’
(ii) a. weil Hans
sich
als einen Superhelden zeichnet.
as John.NOM REFL.ACC as a.ACC superhero paints
‘because John paints (a picture of) himself as a superhero.’
b. weil Hans
sich
als einen Idioten ansieht.
as John.NOM REFL.ACC as an.ACC idiot at-sees
‘because John regards himself as an idiot.’
17
The ungrammaticality of (22) was confirmed by Martin Everaert, Hans Kamp, and Jan-Wouter Zwart (p.c.).
The ungrammaticality of (23a, b) was confirmed by Terje Lohndal, Torgrim Solstad, and Kirsti Koch
Christensen (p.c.). However, more empirical work is necessary on the availability of PoRs in these languages
(see also section 8). For example, there is some indication that not all Norwegian speakers reject all impersonal
PoRs to the same extent (p.c. Tor Åfarli and Arild Hestvik, see also Åfarli 1992:128 for some examples of
Norwegian PoRs which he marks with two question marks; these were, however, rejected by my informants). A
reviewer informs me that there are some Norwegian speakers who accept (23b) but only in the version without
‘selv’. This fits at least to some extent with my proposal that PoRs, if possible at all, must involve inherently or
12
(22) *Er
werd zich gewassen.
There was REFL washed
‘People washed (themselves).’ (Reinhart & Siloni 2004:169, ex. 18c)
(23) a. *Det ble hygget seg.
It was amused REFL
‘People amused (themselves).’ (Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir 2002:133, ex. 44b)
b. *Det ble låst seg (selv) inn i fabrikken.
It was locked REFL (SELF) inside in the.factory
‘People locked themselves in the factory.’ (Maling 2006:219, ex. 26b)
Note that Dutch and Norwegian lack PoRs although they share two properties with German
and Icelandic that might be preconditions for the availability of PoRs: First, Dutch and
Norwegian have impersonal passives (recall that (most) PoRs in German and Icelandic are
impersonal passives; but see section 8 on personal PoRs). Second, the reflexive system in
Dutch and Norwegian is relatively similar to the system in Icelandic and German. Most
importantly, both Dutch and Norwegian have a light reflexive pronoun like German sich and
Icelandic sig – a SE-reflexive in the terminology of Reinhart & Reuland (1993) – which is
typically used in the context of inherently and naturally reflexive verbs.
5. Theoretical evaluation
Any theoretical account of PoRs should be able to answer the following questions (questions
Q1 and Q2 were already formulated in the introduction, questions Q3 and Q4 grew out of the
investigation in the last three sections):
Q1 Binding Theory: How is Principle A of the Binding Theory satisfied in PoRs, i.e. what
is the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun/anaphor?18
Q2 Case Theory: How is the accusative case on the reflexive pronoun licensed in PoRs, i.e.
how can we understand/explain this counterexample to Burzio’s Generalization?
Q3 Verb Class Restriction: Why are PoRs acceptable only with inherently/naturally
reflexive verbs but not with naturally disjoint verbs? Recall that in the active, the three verb
classes behave the same (see Table 1).
Q4 Language Restriction: Why don’t we find PoRs in other (Germanic) languages,
especially, if they have impersonal passives and a similar anaphoric system involving SEreflexives?
In section 6, I will provide answers to these questions. To give a very quick preview, my
answer to Q1 will build on the idea that ordinary anaphoric binding depends on a syntactic
AGREE-relation between a c-commanding DP-antecedent and the anaphor. In the absence of
such a DP-antecedent (as in impersonal PoRs) some languages allow Default φ-feature
Agreement to formally value the anaphor. Since Default Agreement is a costly operation I
naturally reflexive verbs as only these two verb classes take the simple reflexive in Scandinavian languages. I
would propose that these speakers could come up with a context where the concept ‘x locks y’ gets a naturally
reflexive evaluation (see fn. 60 in appendix 1 for similar effects).
18
Below, I will use the term ‘reflexive (pronoun)’ to refer to an element’s reflexive morphology and the term
‘anaphor’ to refer to an element which is subject to Principle A of the Binding Theory.
13
argue that it is available only in some languages (Q4). The answer to Q3 will follow from the
fact that Default Agreement can only formally value an anaphor but cannot provide a
semantic antecedent for it. In this case, a sucessfull interpretation of the anaphor must depend
on conceptual knowledge about the underlying predicate. Only if this is conceived as
inherently or naturally reflexive, the speaker/hearer can arrive at an interpretation where the
implicit external argument of the passive and the anaphor in object position are covalued
(Q3). Finally, to answer Q2, I will develop a specific version of a dependent case approach
where dependent case can be triggered not only by the presence of a nominative DP but also
by Default Agreement as we find it in impersonal PoRs.
However, before I turn in the next section to a detailed discussion of my solution for the
above four questions, I want to discuss a number of theoretical proposals from the literature –
either specifically on PoRs or, more generally, on reflexivity – that turn out to be insufficient
to fully answer the above questions. This discussion will pave the ground for my own
proposal.
As an answer to question Q1 (Binding Theory), one could suggest that the implicit
argument of passives can act as the antecedent of the anaphor (e.g. Fanselow 1987, Barðdal &
Molnár 2003, Sternefeld 2006, Sigurðsson 2011; see also the so-called ‘smuggling’ approach
to passives in Collins 2005). However, this proposal leaves questions Q2-Q4 without answers:
it does not explain why the reflexive pronoun gets accusative case (while referential DPobjects shift to nominative), it cannot explain why only inherently and naturally reflexive
verbs can form PoRs and it cannot explain why only German and Icelandic form PoRs. Note
in connection to the last point that the implicit argument of passives seems to have quite the
same properties across languages otherwise (e.g. licensing of control, licensing of agentive
adverbs, …).
In order to answer both, question Q1 about Binding Theory and question Q2 about Case
Theory, one could also suggest that PoRs are hidden transitives with a covert external
argument (for example pro, cf. Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir 2002 for Icelandic). If PoRs have a
syntactically projected external argument they should behave like active clauses concerning
Binding Theory and Case Theory. The covert external argument would act as the antecedent
of the anaphor and Burzio’s Generalization would predict that accusative is available.
However, this proposal cannot answer question Q3: Why should the covert external argument
in PoRs be able to antecede an anaphor only if the verb is inherently or naturally reflexive but
not if the verb is naturally disjoint? This is unexpected because in the active this difference
does not exist (cf. Table 1). (As far as I know Romance pro-subjects can antecede reflexives
in all types of reflexive predicates). Furthermore, it remains unclear why only German and
Icelandic can have this type of passive (question Q4).19 German provides a further counterargument against the idea that the anaphor in PoRs has a referential antecedent in the syntax.
German impersonal passives combine with agentive by-phrases which can even introduce 1st
and 2nd person pronouns (24).20
(24) a. Von mir wurde nicht gelacht.
by me was not laughed
19
Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir (2002) propose a silent pro for Icelandic because this language has not only PoRs
with accusative reflexive pronouns but also the New Passive where a referential internal argument keeps its
strcutural accusative case. But, as discussed above, Icelandic PoRs are not genuine instances of the New Passive
in that they are accepted by many speakers who reject the New Passive with referential internal arguments.
Similarily, a pro-analysis would not work for German as this language lacks the counterpart of the New Passive
alltogether. That is, for both standard Icelandic and German it is hard to understand why this pro should occur
only if the structure involves a reflexive pronoun inside the VP.
20
This argument cannot be reproduced for Icelandic because Icelandic does not really accept by-phrases in any
kind of impersonal passive (see e.g. Eythórsson 2008 or Jónsson 2009).
14
‘I did not laugh.’
b. weil
von dir zu viel gelabert wird.
because by you too much babbled becomes
‘because you babble too much.’
1st and 2nd person by-phrases are possible with PoRs, too. However, their effect on a reflexive
pronoun differs from the effect that a 1st or 2nd person subject has in active clauses. In the
active, the bound element agrees with the subject-antecedent in person and number (25a).
Crucially and unequivocally, no agreement between the by-phrase and the bound element is
possible in PoRs (25b); instead, the 3rd person reflexive pronoun is obligatory, as Plank
(1993) has observed. I conclude from these data that the anaphor in PoRs does not have any
argument as its syntactic antecedent at all. Instead, the anaphor gets default realization (as a
3rd person reflexive pronoun).21
(25) a. Nur wir waschen uns / *sich hier täglich.
only we wash
us.ACC / REFL here daily
b. Nur von uns wird
sich / *uns
hier täglich gewaschen.
only by us becomes REFL / us.ACC here daily washed
‘Only we wash ourselves here everyday.’
The existence of PoRs can also not be captured by approaches that treat reflexive verbs as
being detransitivized, be it in the lexicon or in the syntax.22 A case in point is the so-called
‘Bundling-approach’ developed by Reinhart (2000) and Reinhart & Siloni (2005). These
authors assume that reflexive verbs are derived by a process which bundles a verb’s internal
θ-role (<theme>) with its external θ-role (<agent>). As a result, only one argument with a
complex θ-role (<agent, theme>) is merged in the external argument position. (26) illustrates
the effect of Bundling:
(26) Reflexivization Bundling (Reinhart & Siloni 2005: 400)
[θi] [θj] --> [θi - θj], where θi is an external θ-role.
Crucially then, the reflexive element is not an argument of the verb in this account. It is
either merged as a lexical sign that indicates that the Bundling-operation has taken place or it
acts as a case-reducer which absorbs the accusative case of the basically transitive verb.
These two options are correlated with the module of grammar where Bundling is assumed to
take place. In some languages, Bundling is assumed to take place in the lexicon (e.g. English),
in other languages, Bundling takes place in the syntax (e.g. French, German). The two options
are illustrated below in (27) and (28) (Reinhart & Siloni 2005: 401, 404):
21
An alternative, not implausible idea would be that the existentially bound implicit argument of passives is
always 3rd person (or impersonal) and that by-phrases do not have to match the implicit argument in φ-features.
But this would leave unexplained why naturally disjoint verbs are typically judged as deviant in PoRs and why
most languages lack PoRs although, across languages, implicit arguments of passives show the same properties
otherwise.
22
I concentrate here on a version of the intransitivity-account of reflexive verbs that assumes that these verbs are
unergative. Some researchers proposed that reflexive verbs are unaccusative (e.g. Grimshaw 1981). PoRs are
problematic for such an account simply because unaccusatives are not expected to passivize. McGinnis (1998,
2000, 2004) and Embick (2004) propose that reflexive verbs are transitive but involve an unaccusative
derivation. The reflexive pronoun is located in the external argument position and the internal argument moves
across the external argument position to bind the reflexive pronoun. Such an account, besides having technical
problems, is incompatible with PoRs because the process of passivization should absorb the external argument
(i.e., the reflexive pronoun).
15
(27) Bundling in the lexicon (The case feature is reduced before syntax)
a. Example:
Max washes.
b. Verb entry:
washacc[Agent] [Theme]
c. Reflexivization output: wash[Agent-Theme]
d. Syntactic output:
Max[Agent-Theme] washed
e. Interpretation:
∃e [wash(e) & [Agent-Theme](e, Max)] -->23
∃e [wash (e) & Agent(e, Max) & Theme(e, Max)]
(28) Bundling in the syntax (The case feature is absorbed by the reflexive element)
a. Example:
Jean se
lave.
Jean REFL washes
‘John washes.’
b. VP:
[se laveθi-Agent, θk-Theme]
c. IP:
[Jean<θi, θk> [se lavej [VP tj ]]]
d. Interpretation:
∃e [wash(e) & [Agent-Theme](e, Jean)] -->
∃e [wash (e) & Agent(e, Jean) & Theme(e, Jean)]
Within such an approach, one could give the following answer to question Q1 (Binding
Theory): If the reflexive pronoun is not an argument of the verb, then it is not an anaphor
either and, therefore, not subject to Binding Principle A.24
However, the Bundling-approach fails to answer all other questions identified above. It
cannot explain why the reflexive element gets accusative case (Q2). In fact, if the reflexive
element is actually a case absorber (as proposed by Reinhart and Siloni (2005) for German
sich), its presence in PoRs is unexpected. Since the passivization process eliminates
accusative case, there should be no need to insert a case absorber in PoRs. Furthermore, since
the account does not make any difference between types of reflexive verbs (inherently and
naturally reflexive vs. naturally disjoint) and since Bundling is claimed to hold for all
languages involving SE-reflexives, the questions Q3 and Q4 remain open, too.
A potential further problem concerning the Bundling approach is related to locality. The
syntactic version of Bundling is not restricted to co-arguments but can relate the embedded
subject and the matrix subject in ECM-constructions as in the French example in (29).25
However, we have seen examples of PoRs where the reflexive pronoun is not the argument of
a verb but the possessor of a DP and it seems impossible to broaden the concept of syntactic
Bundling to such cases. The relevant Icelandic example is repeated in (30).
(29) Jean se
voit [laver Marie].
Jean REFL sees wash Marie
‘Jean sees himself wash Marie.’
(30) Það var haldið með sínu
liði.
it was held with SELF’s team
‘People supported their own team.’
Doron & Rappaport Hovav (2007) provide a collection of arguments against the Bundling
23
The authors assume that a Bundle of θ-roles is interpreted as a disjunctive conjunction of θ-roles.
Some authors explicitly argued that such an intransitivity approach to reflexive verbs (i.e., that reflexive verbs
are unergative) would account for the binding problem that we identified for PoRs (e.g. Sells et al. 1987, Ágel
1997, Hundt 2002, Eythórsson 2008, Árnadóttir et al. 2011). The arguments that I present below are problematic
for all of these proposals.
25
However, if such examples involve complex predicate formation, even syntactic Bundling might be restricted
to the co-argument domain (see Reinhart & Siloni 2005:406, fn.14).
24
16
approach for so-called ‘syntax-languages’, and, especially, against the claim that reflexive
verbs are (necessarily) intransitive in these languages. I will give here only one of their
arguments, which is originally from Labelle (2008). These authors observe that the Bundling
approach predicts that it should be impossible to focus only one of the two θ-roles that are
involved in the Bundling process. Recall that the Bundling approach proposes that a verb’s
internal θ-role (<theme>) is not assigned to the object position but is bundled together with
the verb’s external θ-role (<agent>) to a complex role (<agent, theme>). This complex role is
then assigned to the verb’s external argument position. As a consequence, it should be
impossible to focus only one of the two θ-roles independently of the other. But as the authors
observe this is empirically not correct. Both the agent and the theme can be focused
independently in a reflexive context as their French example in (31) shows. The German
example in (32) illustrates the same point.
(31) Jean-Pierre s’est
dénoncé lui-même.
Jean-Pierre REFL is denounced himself
(i) ‘Jean-Pierre denounced himself, it was not others who denounced him.’
(ii) ‘Jean-Pierre denounced himself, he did not denounce others.’
(32) Morgens wäscht sie sich immer/erst mal selber.
at.morning washes she REFL always/first-of-all self
(i) agent focus: She washes herself, no-one else washes her.
(context: She is a disabled patient.)
(ii) theme focus: She washes herself, she washes no-one else.
(context: She is a nurse.)
Doron & Rappaport Hovav (2007) conclude that reflexive verbs as in French and German
have a transitive derivation where the reflexive clitic/pronoun bears the internal θ-role, i.e. it
is acts as an anaphor in argument position.26
However, while Doron & Rappaport Hovav argue against ‘syntactic Bundling’ and
propose to derive its effects by ordinary anaphoric binding in syntax, they nevertheless
propose that some reflexive verbs can be intransitive. Specifically, they assume that there
exists, in addition to syntactic anaphoric binding, the lexical operation “Reflexivization” (and
“Reciprocalization”) which identifies a verb’s internal θ-role with its external θ-role. The
result is an intransitive lexical entry, which projects one complex θ-role. When this
intransitive entry is projected in syntax (as a subject), a reflexive pronoun is added as a lexical
marker of reflexivization. That is, these authors explicitly assume that in all languages with
SE-reflexive there exists a syncretism between the anaphor and the marker of reflexivization
(see Kiparsky 2002 for the same view). Furthermore, these two ways to produce a reflexive
interpretation, syntactic binding and lexical reflexivization, are correlated with reflexive verb
classes. The reflexive use of naturally disjoint verbs is derived in the syntax by anaphoric
binding of the reflexive object. Inherently reflexive verbs, on the other hand, are always
derived by lexical reflexivization. Naturally reflexive verbs, finally, have both a syntactic and
a lexical derivation. While Q2 (Case Theory) and Q4 (Language Restriction) remain open,
this proposal seems to answer Q2 (Binding Theory) and Q3 (Verb Class Restriction): PoRs
are possible exactly if a reflexive verb is built with a marker of lexical reflexivization (which
26
See also Alencar & Kelling (2005) and Labelle (2008). Such a conclusion makes it necessary to find an
alternative explanation for as to why reflexive verbs behave like intransitives with respect to a number of tests
(Kayne 1975, Grimshaw 1981). See Alencar & Kelling (2005), Doron & Rappaport Hovav (2007) or Labelle
(2008) for different suggestions.
17
is not subject to Principle A) but not, if it involves an anaphor (which is subject to Principle
A).
However, this proposal is also insufficient to derive the thematic properties of PoRs. First
of all, if PoRs could only be derived on top of lexical reflexivization, it should be impossible
to focus the two θ-roles independently in PoRs. But this prediction is not borne out. As in
active reflexive sentences, the agent role and the theme role in PoRs can be focused
independently via the addition of an intensifier.27 This shows that the reflexive pronoun bears
a θ-role in PoRs and, therefore, is an anaphor in argument position.
(33) Morgens wird
sich immer/erst mal
selber gewaschen.
at.morning becomes REFL always/first-of-all self washed
‘In the morning (first) people (always) wash themselves.’
(√ agent focus, √ theme focus)
Furthermore, Doron & Rappaport Hovav (2007) take lexical Reflexivization to semantically
identify the verb’s external with its internal θ-role. But, as we have seen above in (21a/30),
the domain of natural reflexivity exceeds the verbal coargument domain in that it can involve
possessors. Since lexical processes cannot build any relation between a subject and a
possessor, lexical reflexivization cannot be involved in such examples. I conclude, therefore,
that the reflexive element in PoRs with naturally reflexive predicates is an anaphor with its
own θ-role.
For inherently reflexive verbs, I will also assume that they take as their internal argument
an anaphor subject to Principle A (see also Jónsson 2011 for this claim within Icelandic). This
is not the standard assumption. As mentioned above, many authors analyze inherently
reflexive verbs as necessarily derived in the lexicon. The reasoning is typically the following:
(i) Since the reflexive element in inherently reflexive verbs cannot be replaced by a referential
DP, it cannot have a θ-role. (ii) All arguments must have a θ-role. (iii) Therefore the reflexive
element cannot be an argument and, in turn, it must be a marker of lexical reflexivization. I
think, all three assumptions can be challenged at least to some extent.
Starting with point (iii), it is a fair question why, in language after language, markers of
reflexivization and anaphors should show a syncretism. Furthermore, English has a number of
inherently reflexive verbs formed with the heavy reflexive pronoun ‘himself’ as in (34) (e.g.
Brame 1983). To my knowledge, no one has ever analyzed these heavy reflexive pronouns as
markers of reflexivization;28 instead, these verbs seem to select a reflexive pronoun as their
object.
(34) a. John prided himself/*Mary on his past accomplishment.
b. Sue availed herself/*me of the opportunity.
Turning to point (i), German (like other Germanic languages) has a number of inherently
reflexive constructions where the reflexive is embedded in and clearly θ-marked by a nonsubcategorized PP. An example is the semi-idiomatic string “etwas von sich geben” (literally:
‘to give something from oneself’ meaning ‘to utter something’).29
27
See Hole (2006, 2008) on focusing the implicit argument of passives via an intensifier like German ‘selber’
(self). I should mention that I have not been able to reproduce this ambiguity with Icelandic speakers. I suggest
that this is related to the fact that Icelandic has two reflexive pronouns, a simple and a complex one and that
focusing the simple one is somehow blocked by the existence of the complex one.
28
In fact, the marker of reflexivity in English is typically assumed to be zero, deriving for example one-place
grooming verbs as in ‘John washed’ or ‘John shaved’; see (27) above.
29
Two further examples involving prepositions are given in (i) and (ii). Here a preposition assigns a ‘locational
goal’ role to the reflexive pronoun. Note that these expressions passivize very productively. The string “von sich
18
(35) Hans hat auf der Konferenz viel Unsinn von sich/ *von Maria gegeben.
John has at the conference much nonsense from REFL/*from Mary given
‘John uttered lots of nonsense at the conference.’
Although the reflexive pronoun in the PP cannot be replaced by a referential expression, there
is no doubt that the preposition ‘von’ (from) assigns the θ-role source to it. Since it is not the
verb ‘geben’ (give) which subcategorizes for a source argument but the preposition, this
example illustrates that even inherent reflexivity can exceed a verb’s co-argument domain.
Note in this connection that although this example has a semi-idiomatic interpretation, its
inherent reflexivity is not idiomatic at all. It is a lexical-conceptual necessity that the agent of
a giving-event is identical with its source. Expressing this trivial aspect overtly with the help
of a preposition opens the way for the semi-idiomatic meaning.30
It seems then as if there were two cases of inherent reflexivity, one where we can clearly
identify a θ-role on the reflexive pronoun (35), and one where it seems that we cannot identify
such a role (34 and its counterparts with SE-reflexives in Dutch, German or Icelandic). But
even if the reflexive pronoun in the latter case lacks a θ-role this does not necessarily mean
that it could not be a syntactic argument (cf. (ii)). As mentioned, it seems inevitable to
analyze the SELF-reflexives in the English examples in (34) as complements, i.e. internal
arguments in a syntactic sense. If these arguments lack θ-roles, then the reasoning in (ii),
which is driven by the classical θ-criterion, cannot be upheld in generality. Once we accept
this for SELF-reflexives, there is no a priori reason why SE-reflexives could not be analyzed
the same way.31
An alternative way to react to (i) and (ii) would be to assume that inherent reflexive verbs,
nevertheless, assign a θ-role to their internal argument and that the fact that this internal
argument must be an anaphor is an idiomatic selectional property of these verbs which is not
related to θ-theoretical considerations. The question why we lack intuitions about this internal
θ-role (we cannot identify whether it is a theme, an undergoer, an experiencer or something
else) might be related to the obligatory reflexivity of the θ-assigning predicate. Perhaps we
can identify a θ-role only if the θ-assigner can assign this role to various alternative referential
entities. That is, the θ-role of the reflexive pronoun in (35) is identified as source because, in
other contexts, the θ-assigning P assigns this very same role to a referential argument. If,
however, the reflexive pronoun is the internal argument of an inherent reflexive verb we
might lack intuitions about this θ-role because it is never assigned to a referential entity.
Whether this is on the right track or not, note that the concept of lexical reflexivization as
defined by Reinhart & Siloni and Doron & Rappaort Hovav (Bundling of a verb’s internal
gegeben wurde” from the main text brings about more than 100 hits on Google. In (iii) we see an idiomatic
inherent reflexive construction involving a resultative ECM-constellation.
(i) etwas
auf sich nehmen (ii) etwas
zu sich nehmen
something on REFL take
something to REFL take
‘to take something upon oneself’
‘to ingest something’
(iii) sich vor Lachen in die Ecke schmeissen
REFL for laughing into the corner throw
‘to laugh one’s head off’
30
Therefore such examples are not ‘idioms’ but ‘idiomatically combining expressions’ in the sense of Nunberg
et al. (1994). While idioms are not interpreted compositionally, the interpretation of an idiomatically combining
expression is derived compositionally from the meanings of its parts. Its constituents (in our case most
importantly the PP) carry identifiable parts of the overall interpretation. It is just that such expressions have a
figurative use.
31
In a similar vein, Steinbach (2002) and Schäfer (2008) argue that German anticausatives and middles which
also come obligatorily with a SE-reflexive behave syntactically as transitive constructions although they involve
only one θ-role, i.e. they analyze the reflexive pronoun in these constructions as a non-thematic argument.
19
with its external θ-role) also requires that inherent reflexive verbs involve an internal θ-role.
While in these accounts this θ-role gets bundled in the lexicon with the external θ-role, the
alternative sketched here would associate this θ-role with the reflexive object. It seems to me
that the two alternatives cannot be distinguished on interpretative grounds.32
6. An analysis of PoRs
6.1 The distribution of PoRs
As said, I assume that reflexive elements like German sich, Icelandic sig, Norwegian seg or
Dutch zich (SE-reflexives in the terminology of Reinhart & Reuland 1993) are always
anaphors.33 Being anaphors, these elements are subject to (some version of) Binding Principle
A (Chomsky 1981), no matter whether they occur in an inherently reflexive, naturally
reflexive or naturally disjoint context. In the last section, we saw that inherent and natural
reflexivity sometimes exceed a verb’s co-argument domain. I assume, therefore, that inherent
and natural reflexivity and their counterpart, natural disjointness, are not lexically specified
but are post-syntactic phenomena which are determined at the Conceptual-Intentional
interface. They are computed on the basis of conceptual information about the material inside
vP/VoiceP, i.e. the meaning of the verb, its arguments as well as its adjuncts/modifiers (see
the discussion in the last section; see also fn. 7 and fn. 60 in appendix 1).
Above, I claimed that the anaphor in PoRs lacks a syntactic antecedent. If the implicit
external argument of the passive could act as syntactic antecedent, we could not explain why
naturally disjoint verbs are typically excluded from PoRs. Furthermore, the agreement facts in
(25b) would be problematic. As a consequence, this means that the traditional version of
Principle A of the Binding Theory is not fulfilled in PoRs. To explain why PoRs are,
nevertheless, available in some languages under some contexts, I make the following
proposal:
(36) Some languages can formally repair a violation of Principle A. However, the formally
repaired structure is acceptable (i.e., easily interpretable) only if the underlying
predicate/event is conceptualized as inherently or naturally reflexive.
The following picture illustrates this idea. In most languages (e.g. Dutch or Norwegian), PoRs
are formally ungrammatical because they violate Principle A of the Binding Theory (dark
area). Some languages have a mechanism that allows repairing the Principle A violation that
goes along with PoRs (grey area). However, only a subset of these formally rescued PoRs is
judged as acceptable (white area). This is so because the repair mechanism is purely formal
and does not, by itself, lead to a successful interpretation of the reflexive pronoun. A
successful interpretation is only possible if conceptual knowledge supports it. This is the case
in inherently and naturally reflexive contexts, which come with the conceptual expectation
that the reflexive pronoun and the (implicit) external argument have the same semantic value.
I will develop this proposal in the following subsections.
32
The focus test in (31)-(33) can, of course, not be applied to inherently reflexive constructions because
inherently reflexive constructions do not allow for alternatives concerning the internal θ-role.
33
I leave aside here the role of SE-reflexives in anticausatives and generic middles. See section 9 and the
references there for some discussion.
20
The distribution of PoRs
PoRs in all languages (all types of verbs)
PoRs in German/Icelandic
(all types of verbs)
Dutch
PoRs with inherently and
naturally reflexive verbs
Norwegian
(formally) ungrammatical
(formally) grammatical
(semantically) acceptable
6.2 Basic assumptions on anaphoric binding and structural case
In this section, I provide some background assumptions concerning Binding Theory and Case
Theory (see also Schäfer (2008, to appear)). I will only discuss local binding of SE-reflexives
and their pronominal 1st and 2nd person counterparts. I will not be concerned with longdistance binding, the licensing of SELF-reflexives or Principle B effects. Note that I will most
of the time leave aside aspects of phase theory (Chomsky 2001). I do so for reasons of space
and simplicity of presentation, as the system developed below leads to nontrivial questions
about the timing of the operation TRANSFER and which details of the syntactic derivation are
available for evaluation at the interfaces (but see below for some comments). For further
discussion of how the present system can be combined with phase theory, I refer the
interested reader to Schäfer (2008, to appear).
I follow earlier proposals in assuming that anaphoric binding is grounded in a syntactic
AGREE-relation (Chomsky 2000, 2001) between a DP-antecedent and an anaphoric variable
(e.g. Fanselow 1991, Burzio 1991, 1998, Reuland 2001, 2005, Fischer 2004, 2006, Heinat
2006, Chomsky 2008, Kratzer 2009, Tucker 2010). I assume that an anaphoric variable is
totally underspecified for φ-features: it is a set of a categorial D-feature and unvalued φfeatures {D, uφ} (cf. Burzio 1991, Kratzer 2009, Tucker 2010 for similar proposals).
Therefore, it is referentially defective. Furthermore, such a variable needs an antecedent to
value its φ-features under syntactic AGREE. This AGREE-relation gets evaluated at the
interfaces to compute the morphological form and the semantic value of the variable.
Since the variable has unvalued φ-features it is active, thereby qualifying as a probe
(Chomsky 2000, 2001). The antecedent is a DP with valued φ-features and, therefore, it can
act as a goal for φ-agreement. Specifically, I propose that the variable probes the tree upwards
to get its features valued by a c-commanding antecedent. I will assume the option of upwardprobing without further defending it here; for some recent literature on upward-probing (or
“reverse probing”) see Baker (2008), Wurmbrand (to appear), Bjorkman (2011) or Zeijlstra
(in press).
If AGREE between the variable and a c-commanding antecedent has taken place, the
structure is sent to the interfaces for interpretation.34 If AGREE does not take place, the
features of the variable remain unvalued and, as a consequence, the derivation will crash.
Since syntactic AGREE is local (i.e., it has to take place within a phase), this setup has an
34
That is, I assume that the AGREE-relation between an anaphor and its antecedent is not mediated by a
functional verbal head as, e.g. in Kratzer (2009). I do this mainly for reasons of simplicity, though see Tucker
(2010) for some argumentation against mediation by functional heads.
21
effect similar to Principle A of the standard Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981): An anaphoric
variable needs a local, c-commanding antecedent. However, rephrasing Principle A as an
AGREE-operation will allow me to implement a repair strategy for Principle A violations
taking place in PoRs (see below).
At LF, the syntactic AGREE-relation between the variable and the antecedent is evaluated
semantically as a binding relation (as expressed via coindexation in earlier stages of the
theory; see Reuland 2001, 2005 for discussion). At PF, the AGREE-relation is evaluated
morpho-phonologically and the Spell Out of the variable is determined. The specific Spell
Out, either as a SE-reflexive or as a (locally bound) pronoun, depends on the φ-features of the
antecedent and language-dependent morpho-phonological economy conditions (see Halle &
Marantz 1993, Burzio 1998, Heinat 2006 for discussion). In most Germanic languages the
situation is as follows: If the variable is valued by a 3rd person antecedent, it gets spelled out
as a SE-reflexive. If it is valued by a 1st or 2nd person antecedent, it is spelled out as a 1st or 2nd
person object pronoun.35 However, some languages use the SE-reflexive also for other than
just 3rd person antecedents (e.g. Polish uses it for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person antecedents) while
other languages lack a SE-reflexive and always use a pronoun overtly matching the
antecedent in φ-features (e.g. Frisian).
Full-fledged referential pronouns, on the other hand, are the combination of a D-feature
and a set of valued φ-features {D, φ}. Therefore, they refer independently and they always
spell out their inherent φ-feature.
Note that I must assume that both interfaces can differentiate between a pronominal
element that started the derivation with all ϕ-features valued (a referential pronoun) and a
pronominal element that started the derivation with unvalued ϕ-features and gets these
features valued only during the derivation (an anaphor). PF needs to know this in order to
derive the correct spell out as a SE-reflexive or a third person pronoun. The CI-interface
needs to know which element valued the ϕ-features of the anaphor in order to compute the
correct semantic binding relation (see Schäfer (to appear) for some further discussion).
Concerning Case Theory, I make two basic assumptions. First, I will assume (a specific
variant of) a dependent case approach (cf. Yip et al. 1987, Woolford 1997, Haider 2000,
Marantz 2000, Sigurðsson 2000 et seq., among others). Despite differences in execution,
dependent case approaches derive Burzio’s Generalization (BG) by the assumption that there
is a dependency relation between nominative and accusative assignment in that the latter case
is available in a clause only if the former has already been assigned. While such a derivation
of BG is a welcome result, PoRs seem to contradict it. To derive both, the standard cases of
BG as well as accusative as the only structural case in PoRs, an update in the precise
formulation of the dependency relation will be necessary.
Second, I follow recent proposals that morphological case is mainly a PF phenomenon
(Marantz (2000), McFadden (2004), Sigurðsson (2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009) among
others). However, in accordance with these authors, I assume that PF determines
morphological case on the basis of syntactic information. Specifically, I propose that PF
evaluates the syntactic AGREE-relation involving T(ense) to determine structural case (this
35
This proposal, therefore, has to assume that 1st and 2nd person pronouns are ambiguous between referential
pronouns and anaphors. If they are (locally) free as in (i), they are pronouns which start the derivation with a
valued set of φ-features (see below), when they are locally bound as in (ii), they are variables that start the
derivation with unvalued φ-features which receive their values from the local antecedent (cf. ‘fake indexicals’ in
Katzer 2009). It should be mentioned that such an ambiguity has been rejected e.g. by Fanselow (1989, 1991) or
Burzio (1998). Since this paper is mainly about SE-reflexives, I will not further go into this point (but see section
9 for some comment).
(i) Eri sieht michk (ii) Ichi sehe michi
He sees me
I see me
‘He sees me.’
‘I see myself.’
22
assumption will be slightly modified in section 7). As is the standard assumption, T enters the
derivation with unvalued φ-features and probes its c-command domain for the closest valued
DP to agree with. At PF, this AGREE-relation is evaluated to determine dependent case
(accusative) and default case (nominative). Specifically, I propose the following three caseprinciples to be at work:
(37) a. Dependent case (ACC) (first version): A DP is realized at PF with dependent case if
a different DP has valued local T via AGREE.36
b. Default case (NOM): A DP which is not realized with dependent case, appears with
default case.
c. Inherent/lexical case takes precedence over default and dependent case.
To illustrate the above assumptions about Binding Theory and Case Theory, consider the
derivation of the example in (38) involving a transitive verb with a subject-bound anaphor in
object position.37
(38) dass Hans
sich
mag.
that John.NOM REFL.ACC likes
‘that John likes himself.’
(39)
TP
3
T
vP
3
{uP, uN, uG}
Hans{P, N, G}
v’
3
v
VP
3
sich{uP, uN, uG} V
The variable in object position enters the derivation with unvalued ϕ-features. The external
argument is merged with a full set of valued φ-features. T enters the derivation with unvalued
φ-features. Two AGREE-processes take place (indicated by the two arrows). One is initiated by
the variable in object position. As said, I assume that variables probe the tree upwards;
thereby the variable agrees with and gets valued by the subject. The second AGREE-process is
initiated by T, which probes its c-command domain. The closest element with valued φfeatures is the external argument in Spec,vP which therefore agrees with and values T (i.e.
this is the standard Chomskian AGREE process where the probe c-commands the goal). I
assume that German does not have obligatory movement to Spec,TP, but nothing hinges on
this. Note that I dispense with an activity condition for the goal, here the subject DP. Since I
assume that Case is not a syntactic feature, the standard assumption that unvalued Case
activates the goal, is not applicable. The overall consequences of this move are beyond the
36
In Schäfer (2008, to appear), I argue that this combination of an AGREE-based with a dependent case approach
is necessary to derive the ergative-like case-pattern of reflexive anticausatives and reflexive middles in Germanic
and Romance languages (see also section 9). Specifically, I provide arguments that reflexive
anticausatives/middles involve a nominative theme in object position and an accusative reflexive pronoun in
Spec,vP. Since the reflexive has unvalued φ-features, the theme values T (and, indirectly, the reflexive). Baker &
Vinokurova (2010) also propose the combination of an AGREE-based with a dependent-case approach.
37
Recall that I leave aspects of Phase Theory aside. The version of the present theory developed in the next
section is compatible with the standard assumption that VoiceP/vP is a phase.
23
scope of this paper. These two AGREE-relations will be evaluated at the interfaces. At PF, the
internal argument is marked with dependent ACC because there is a different DP (the subject)
within the same clause which has valued the features on T via AGREE (cf. 37a). The subject
itself, on the other hand, gets default case as nothing more specific is said about its case (cf.
37b). Finally, the variable is spelled out according to the φ-features of its antecedent. Since
the antecedent is 3rd person, the variable gets realized as a SE-reflexive. At LF, finally, the
AGREE-relation between the subject and the variable is interpreted as semantic binding. With
this background, we can finally turn to a more technical discussion of PoRs.
6.3 Deriving PoRs
Consider the German PoR in (40). The tree in (41) illustrates how the system sketched in the
previous subsection handles this and similar examples. The following derivational steps take
place: Both the variable and T enter the derivation with unvalued φ-features. T searches its ccommand domain and the variable searches the tree upwards (as indicated by the dotted
arrows). Since PoRs are impersonal constructions (but see section 8), there is no DP available
that could value either T or the variable. But note that ‘AGREE’ and ‘valuation’ are different
processes if we assume with Frampton & Gutmann (2000) or Pesetsky & Torrego (2007) that
AGREE involves just feature sharing. Therefore, T and the variable agree with each other in
(41), but since none of the two has valued features, no valuation can take place.
(40) als sich gewaschen wurde.
when REFL washed became
‘when people washed (themselves).’
(41)
TP
3
T
vPpassive
!
{uP, uN, uG}
v’
3
vpassive
VP
3
DP{uP, uN, uG} V
(41) involves an unvalued two-member agreement chain < T – variable >. Therefore, the
derivation should crash at the interfaces. This looks like the correct result for Dutch or
Norwegian, but it isn’t the correct prediction for German and Icelandic. Note, however, that
German and Icelandic (but also Dutch and Norwegian) have a construction different from
PoRs which provides a very similar problem, namely the ordinary impersonal passive (or
other impersonal constructions such as quirky intransitives in Icelandic) exemplified in (42).
As these examples show, German and Icelandic do not allow the insertion of an expletive in
the context of impersonal passives suggesting that these are really impersonal even in a
formal sense. (An expletive can, of course, be base-generated in sentence inital position
(Spec,CP) to fulfill the verb-second property.)
(42) a. weil (*es) hier gestern lange getanzt wurde.
because expl here yesterday long danced was
‘Yesterday people danced for a long time.’
24
(German)
b. ĺ dag hefur (*það) verið dansað.
today has
expl been danced
‘Today, people danced.’
(Icelandic)
The derivation of simple impersonal passives is sketched in (43). This time, only one element
with unvalued ϕ-features is present, namely T. T probes its c-command domain but cannot
find any other element that could value it. The derivation involves an unvalued one-member
chain < T > that should lead to a crash at the PF-interface, contrary to fact.
(43)
TP
3
T{uP, uN, uG} vPpassive
!
v’
3
vpassive
VP
!
V
?
Languages deal with impersonal passives in different ways. Some languages insert a nominal
expletive with φ-features that can value T and check the EPP on T. In such languages, the
problem depicted in (43) does not arise. Holmberg (2002) shows this to be the case for some
Norwegian dialects where the expletive has a pronominal origin (i.e., it carries inherent ϕfeatures). But other languages lack expletives with nominal features and the problem depicted
in (43) holds. The languages discussed in this paper (German Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian )
are of this latter type.38 I assume with Ruys (2010) that in the latter type of languages Default
Agreement (DA) values T and saves the derivation of impersonal passives. In a minimalist
framework which involves the syntactic operation AGREE and the concept of Full
Interpretation (i.e., the idea that derivations crash at the interfaces if unvalued (and/or
uninterpretable) features remain unchecked), default agreement must be a process taking
place in core syntax, i.e. before TRANSFER to the interfaces. I assume the following
conception of Default Agreement (taken from Ruys 2010):
(44) Default agreement (DA):
In the absence of any appropriate nominal category, the ϕ-features on an unvalued
probe undergo default valuation [3rd person, singular].
DA on T is a way to rescue impersonal constructions such as impersonal passives (but see the
next section for an update and especially fn. 48 for a important restriction on DA). It is a last
resort operation, i.e., a repair strategy that avoids that a derivation crashes for purely formal
reasons at the interfaces. Furthermore, I assume that DA is a costly operation and, therefore, it
is not available in all languages. Languages lacking DA on T (as well as a nominal expletive)
do not allow the formation of impersonal constructions. English might be a case in point (cf.
Ruys 2010). With this conception of DA at hand, I return to PoRs and provide answers to the
questions Q1-Q4 formulated at the beginning of section 5.
38
Holmberg (2002) shows that standard Norwegian uses an expletive in impersonal passives which has a
locative origin and lacks nominal ϕ-features. The Dutch expletive er used in impersonal passives is of the same
kind (see Ruys 2010). Such expletives can check the EPP on T but cannot value T.
25
Recall that I concluded that the anaphor in PoRs lacks a syntactic antecedent. Question Q1
asks, therefore, why PoRs are not filtered out as a Principle A violation. I proposed that
anaphoric variables (often spelled out as SE-reflexives) are similar to T in that both enter the
derivation with unvalued ϕ-features. In the case of ordinary binding, the unvalued features on
the variable get valued by a DP-antecedent. In PoRs, T and the variable form an agreement
chain <T – variable> which, however, remains unvalued (see the derivation in (41)). I argue
that PoRs do not crash at the interfaces if this agreement chain <T – variable> can be valued
by D(efault) A(greement). That is, DA formally precludes a violation of Principle A in PoRs:
the variable gets its unvalued features valued although no c-commanding DP-antecedent is
available. DA can, however, not provide any help concerning the semantic interpretation of
the variable in the absence of a DP-antecedent. The question of how to interpret the variable
in PoRs will be discussed below.
The idea that DA is a costly operation can provide an answer to question Q4. Recall that
PoRs are available only in few languages and, more specifically, only in a subset of the
languages with impersonal passives. Following Ruys (2010), I proposed that impersonal
passives are rescued if the one member agreement chain <T> is valued via DA. In order to
rescue PoRs, I proposed that the two-member agreement chain <T – variable> needs to be
valued via DA. Arguably then, the DA-operation needed in simple impersonal passives is less
complex than the DA-operation needed in PoRs. I propose, therefore, that languages differ in
the complexity of the DA-operations they make available. Some languages lack DA. Other
languages like Dutch or Norwegian make DA available only for heads of the extended verbal
domain such as T. German and Icelandic, in addition, make DA available for nonhomogeneous agreement-chains involving a verbal head (T) and an anaphoric variable.
Next, I turn to question Q3 about the verb class restriction. Above, I argued that DA
formally avoids that PoRs crash at the interfaces. The variable (as well as T) gets its features
valued as if it had a DP-antecedent. But crucially, no DP-antecedent is available that could
semantically bind the variable at LF, i.e. the derivation provides no clue how to interpret the
variable. At this point, I argue that conceptual knowledge about the verbal event expressed by
the PoR becomes crucial. The output of the syntactic derivation involving DA on a variable is
comprehensible at the CI-interface only if conceptual knowledge provides some information
about how to interpret the variable. With inherently reflexive verbs, it is conceptually clear
that the anaphor has to depend semantically on the referent acting as external argument.39
Naturally reflexive events carry the strong conceptual expectation that the argument position
realized by the semantically unbound reflexive pronoun is covalued with the external
argument of the same event (see the discussion around example (8)). That is, in inherently and
naturally reflexive contexts, the semantic coindexation that is usually computed from
syntactic binding/AGREE between a DP-antecedent and a variable can be reconstructed on
conceptual grounds beyond any doubt. Naturally disjoint verbs or contexts do not provide any
such conceptual clue about how to interpret the variable, and this is the reason, I argue, why
they typically do not enter the formation of PoRs.40
This leaves question Q2 about accusative case to be accounted for. Note that there is no
reason to assume that the accusative case on the reflexive pronoun in PoRs is in any way
39
This argumentation assumes that inherently reflexive constructions involve a θ-role on the reflexive pronoun.
While I argued in section 5 that this is the case in some cases (e.g. (35)), I left it open for other cases of inherent
reflexivity (e.g. (34)). If examples of the latter type lack a θ-role on the reflexive pronoun, then all that is needed
to derive PoRs from them is the availability of DA on the variable.
40
Note that I assume that PoRs involving naturally disjoint verbs are formally grammatical in German and
Icelandic because DA values the variable. They are however, unacceptable, due to the interpretative problems
described in the text. I predict, however, that PoRs involving naturally disjoint verbs become more acceptable, if
the bigger context (i.e. the context beyond the bare passive vP) provides some expectation about how to interpret
the variable (see. fn. 7 and fn. 60 in appendix 1 for some exemplification).
26
different than ordinary structural accusative case. Furthermore, there is no reason to assume
that the case system active in PoRs is different from the general case system of the languages
under consideration. That is, it does not make sense to stipulate that only PoRs but not other
passives can assign structural accusative case. The availability of structural accusative in
PoRs should, therefore, follow from an interplay between the general theory of structural
accusative case and some property present only in PoRs but not in ordinary passives.
Arguably, this property must somehow be related to the presence of the anaphor (a SEreflexive). I argue, therefore, that the availability of accusative case in PoRs depends on a
formal property of anaphors (SE-reflexives), namely their φ-feature deficiency. In the
previous section, I formulated the post-syntactic algorithm for object case (ACC) repeated in
(45) that crucially builds on a syntactic AGREE-relation between T and a DP. In order to
derive accusative on the reflexive pronoun in PoRs, we need to update this rule for dependent
case slightly as in (46) so that any kind of AGREE-valuation, either AGREE with a DP or
Default Agreement, is relevant for the determination of dependent case:41
(45) Dependent case (ACC) (old version):
A DP is realized at PF with dependent case if a different DP has valued T via AGREE.
(46) Dependent case (ACC) (updated version):
A DP is realized at PF with dependent case if something else (either a different DP or
Default Agreement) has valued T via (default) AGREE.
In the next section, I will turn to a discussion of the relation between PoRs and the Icelandic
New Passive; as mentioned earlier, this latter construction shows unexpected accusatives not
only on reflexive pronouns in object position but also on referential object DPs.
7. The relation between PoRs and the New Passive
In this section, I will discuss the relation between PoRs and the New Passive in Icelandic. In
section 3, I had mentioned that Icelandic PoRs are not genuine instances of the New Passive
because the latter is accepted only by a subset of the speakers who accept PoRs. However,
some authors suggested that PoRs constituted a first step towards the development of the New
Passive (e.g. Maling & Sigurjónsdóttir 2002, Árnadóttir et al. 2011).42 Below, I will update
my analysis of PoRs in order to make a proposal about how this development might have
happened. Specifically, I will argue that speakers of the New Passive variant have
grammaticalized the output of the repair mechanism of Default Agreement, which I argued is
at stake in PoRs. As a starting point, I will discuss in some more detail the differences
between the canonical passive and the New Passive in Icelandic. For reasons of space, I will
concentrate on passives of canonical transitive verbs (NOM-ACC verbs). As far as I can see,
verbs with lexically case marked objects can easily be subsumed under the present proposal
(see Sigurðsson 2011 for a more detailed discussion).
The canonical passive in Icelandic is relatively straightforward (e.g. Zaenen, Maling &
Thráinsson 1985, Sigurðsson 1989, 2011, Thráinsson 2007, Eyþórsson 2008). The external
41
Both versions of the dependent case approach free Burzio’s Generalization from any relation to θ-roles (see
e.g. Sigurðsson (2006) and already Abraham (1986) for motivation). Both versions predict, furthermore, wellrestricted, but slightly different, sets of counterexamples to the original version of Burzio’s Generalization.
42
Some authors hinted at the relevance of other phenomena for the development of the New Passive, such as
cases of syncretisms between NOM and ACC, exceptions to the definiteness effect in canonical passives with
postverbal internal arguments (Árnadóttir et al. 2011) or the frequent use of impersonal constructions per se as
well as the existence of impersonal prepositional passives as in (48c) (Barðdal & Molnár 2006, Sigurðsson
2011).
27
argument of the corresponding active (47a) is demoted and the accusative object shifts to
nominative case, thereby agreeing with the auxiliary ‘vera’ (be) (in number and person) and
the past participle (in number and gender). Furthermore, this nominative DP usually
undergoes DP-movement to the first position of the clause, as in (47b).43 However, there exist
also passives of transitive verbs (47c) where the first position is filled by the expletive ‘það’
(there, it) (or by any other element suiting for the sentence initial position, e.g. adverbs) and
the internal argument stays in its base position inside the vP.44 Even if the object DP stays
inside vP, it still receives nominative case and triggers agreement on the auxiliary and the
participle. However, in order to stay inside vP, the object must be indefinite (Sigurðsson
2000, 2011, Thráinsson 2007 and Eyþórsson 2008). Due to this definiteness effect, the
example in (47d) is ungrammatical. ((47a-d) are taken from Eyþórsson 2008).
(47) a. Einhver lamdi stúlkuna.
someone beat girl.the.ACC
‘Someone beat the girl.’
b. Stúlkan
var lamin
girl.the.NOM was beaten.FEM.SG
‘The girl was beaten.’
c. Það var lamin
stúlka.
it was beaten.FEM.SG girl.NOM
‘A girl was beaten.’
d. *Það var lamin
stúlkan.
it was beaten.FEM.SG girl.the.NOM
‘The girl was beaten.’
(Active)
(Canonical Passive)
(Impersonal Canonical Passive)
As discussed earlier, Icelandic also allows impersonal passives of unergative verbs. In this
case, the expletive (or an adverb) fills the sentence initial position and default morphology
shows up on the auxiliary (3rd person, singular) and the participle (neuter singular). ((48a) is
from Eyþórsson 2008, (48b-c) are from Sigurðsson 2011).
(48) a. Það var dansað
alla nóttina.
it was danced.NEU.SG all night.the
‘People danced all night.’
b. Hér er verið
að vinna.
here is been.NEU.SG to work
‘People are working here.’
c. Þess vegna var ekki talað
við þá.
that for
was not talked.NEU.SG with them
‘Therefore, people did not talk to them.’
The New Passive is also built with the auxiliary ‘vera’ and the verb’s past participle and the
external argument is not overtly projected. However, three properties set this construction
apart from the canonical passive: (i) there is no ACC-to-NOM conversion and, in turn, the
auxiliary and the participle show up with default morphology (see (49), where the percent
sign indicates that only some speakers accept the construction). (ii) NP-movement of the
internal argument out of the vP is impossible and in turn the expletive ‘það’ (or an adverbial)
is inserted in the clause initial position, see (49 vs. 50). (iii) As first discussed by Maling &
43
This is typically analyzed as cyclic movement to Spec,CP via Spec,TP.
The indefinite object can also undergo short movement to the left of the participle, but this is not important for
our purposes here (see Sigurðsson 2011:fn. 3 for discussion).
44
28
Sigurjónsdóttir (2002), there is no definiteness effect, see (49b). (The examples in (49) and
(50) are taken from from Eyþórsson 2008. (50a, b) were slightly modified; p.c. Thórhallur
Eythórsson).
(49) a.
%
Það var lamið
stúlku.
it was beaten.N.SG girl.ACC
‘A girl was beaten.’
b. %Það var lamið
stúlkuna.
it was beaten.N.SG girl.the.ACC
‘The girl was beaten.’
(New Passive)
(50) a. *Það var stúlku
lamið.
it was girl.ACC beaten.N.SG
‘A girl was beaten.’
b. *Það var stúlkuna
lamið.
it was girl.the.ACC beaten.N.SG
‘The girl was beaten.’
(New Passive)
(New Passive)
(New Passive)
All three properties are prototypically associated with the internal argument of transitive
verbs, but here we find them with a passive (see fn. 13). I will mainly concentrate on the case
problem of the New Passive here as a full discussion of the ban on A-movement and the
absence of the definiteness effect are beyond the scope of this paper. However, I will also
provide some informal suggestions about the latter two properties below.
As Sigurðsson (2011) stresses, accusative case preservation takes place only in the context
of the New Passive, i.e. such violations of Burzio’s Generalization are not a general property
of speakers of the New Passive variety. Similarly, the absence of the definiteness effect is
restricted to the context of the New Passive and does not show up with other structures
lacking an external argument (e.g. canonical passives, unaccusatives). Any analysis of the
New Passive must explain why these three properties are strictly restricted to this specific
construction. For this reason, I will update the case theory developed in the last section.
Specifically, I will assume that the determination of case morphology is based on syntactic
information computed inside of the vP/VoiceP (see Sigurðsson (2000), (2003), (2009) and
Schäfer (2008, to appear) for a general motivation of this move). The role that T(ense) played
in the earlier version above is now taken over by little v (also called Voice). This means that v
is equipped with a set of unvalued φ-features which must be valued by the closest DP. In
order to derive that the subject, which is base generated in Spec,vP, will be realized with
nominative case, I assume that v searches its m-command domain for the closest DP and that
the DP in the specifier of vP is closer to v than a DP embedded in the complement of v.45/46 In
A definition of AGREE that meets our requirements has been formulated by Müller (2009):
AGREE: α agrees with β with respect to a feature bundle Γ iff (a), (b), and (c) hold:
a. α bears a probe feature [*F*] in Γ, β bears a matching goal feature [F] in Γ (Starring a feature indicates
its probe status; see Sternefeld 2006).
b. α m-commands β.
c. There is no δ such that (i) and (ii) hold:
(i)
δ is closer to α than β.
(ii)
δ bears a feature [F] that has not yet participated in AGREE.
d. δ is closer to α than β if the path from δ to α is shorter than the path from β to α. The path from X to Y is
the set of categories Z such that (i) and (ii) hold:
(i)
Z is reflexively dominated by the minimal XP that dominates both X and Y.
(ii)
Z dominates X or Y.
45
29
transitive vPs, v will therefore agree with the external argument as illustrated in (51), in
canonical unaccusative and passive structures illustrated in (52), v will agree with the internal
argument.
(51) a. dass Hans
Maria
kämmt.
that John.NOM Mary.ACC combs
‘that John combs Mary.’
b.
TP
3
T
vP
3
Hans{P, N, G}
v’
3
v{uP, uN, uG} VP
3
Maria{P, N, G} V
(52) a. dass Maria
gekämmt wird.
that Mary.NOM combed becomes
‘that Mary is (getting) combed.’
b.
TP
3
T
vPpassive
!
v’
3
vpass{ uP, uN, uG } VP
3
Maria{P,N, G}
V
To derive from these derivations morphological case, I update the principle determining
dependent case as below:
(53) Dependent case (ACC) (final version): A DP is realized at PF with dependent case if it
is not involved in the valuation of local v/Voice via AGREE. (This is the case if Voice/v
gets valued by a different DP, by Default Agreement or if Voice/v is lexically equipped
with a set of valued ϕ-features (for the latter, see below)).
If nominative case is generally negotiated inside the vP and not via T, something in addition
has to be said about DP-movement to Spec,TP as well as about verbal agreement which is
typically assumed to be located in T. Concerning A-movement to Spec,TP, it has been argued
The length of a path is determined by its cardinality. It follows that the specifier and the complement of a head
qualify as equally close to the head; and that the specifier of a head is closer to the head than a category that is
further embedded in the complement of the head.
46
As an alternative to m-command, we could follow proposals in the literature which dissociate Voice from the
base position of the external argument (e.g. Collins 2005, Sigurðsson 2011). In these accounts, VoiceP
dominates vP and the latter introduces the external argument. If Voice is active, an external argument is
projected in Spec,vP, if Voice is passive, no Spec,vP is projected and the external argument remains implicit. If
we assume that the ϕ-features relevant for case-determination are located in Voice, we can derive a nominativeaccusative case system by letting Voice search its c-command domain for the closest valued DP.
30
that this is triggered by an EPP-feature on T, not by Nominative Case (Alexiadou &
Anagnostopoulou 1998, 2001, Marantz 2000, Sigurðsson 2000, McFadden 2004, among
others). The standard implementation of A-movement along these lines takes it that T has
unvalued ϕ-features and an EPP-feature and that the DP which values T’s ϕ-features is
afterwards moved to Spec, TP. However, quirky subjects in Icelandic make it clear that the
element that moves to Spec,TP is not necessarily the one which triggers agreement
morphology on T. This means that we should dissociate DP-movement to Spec,TP not only
from nominative case but also from overt agreement morphology on T. I follow, therefore,
proposals which argue that verbal agreement morphology on T should be seen as the result of
cyclic AGREE between Tense and the lower Voice/v-head (Legate 2005, Marantz to appear,
Schäfer to appear); since the latter has been valued by the DP that receives nominative, T will
indirectly agree with this DP, too.47 In the trees below, I leave out this AGREE-relation
between T and the lower Voice/v-head for simplicity, but note that this AGREE-relation allows
it to uphold the crucial connection between finiteness/verbal agreement on T and nominative
case in this theory.
The derivation of PoRs is straightforward. Instead of T, it is now little v that agrees with
the anaphor. More concretely, v probes downwards and the anaphor probes upwards and the
two form an unvalued two-member agreement chain. This derivation crashes in Dutch or
Norwegian, but in German and Icelandic Default Agreement rescues it.48
(54) a. dass sich gewaschen wird.
that REFL washed
becomes
‘that people wash.’
b.
TP
3
T
vPpassive
!
v’
3
vpass{ uP, uN, uG } VP
3
DP{uP, uN, uG} V
To derive the preservation of structural accusative in the New Passive, I propose that speakers
of this variant of Icelandic have grammaticalized the outcome of this Default Agreement
operation; i.e., these speakers (mis-)interpreted the PF of PoRs as an indication that there
exists a passive v-head with valued ϕ-features.49 Such a v-head does not probe and the case
47
That is, I assume that T is involved in two different AGREE-processes, one triggering dislocation to Spec,TP
and the other one leading to overt agreement morphology in T. While the former process arguably takes place in
the syntax, it has been proposed that the latter takes at PF (Bobalijk 2008, Sigurðsson 2011). See the next
footnote for conceptual considerations why this latter process might also take place in the syntax.
48
In ordinary impersonal passives lacking any DP argument, T and v form an unvalued agreement chain which
must be valued by DA. In order to derive that PoRs are available only in a subset of languages forming
impersonal passives, I propose that DA on a chain between two verbal heads (T <---> v) is less costly than DA
on a chain between two verbal heads and a DP (T <---> v <---> anaphor). Note that this is compatible with the
idea that DA is restricted in that it can only apply if syntactic AGREE between a probe and (an unvalued) goal has
taken place, i.e., DA can only value chains, not just single heads like T or v (see D’Alessandro 2007:4.3 and
Lopez 2008 for this idea). This might be important to avoid overgeneration.
49
This proposal leads to the question whether ordinary impersonal passives could also lead to a New Passive. On
the empirical side, I would hypothesize that this is not possible. In order to derive this result, phase theory might
be relevant though I can only speculate here. If the passsive vP is a phase, DA between v and an anphor will take
31
assignment constraint in (53) predicts that the internal argument gets accusative case at PF.50
Speakers of Icelandic, therefore have (a subset of) the following inventory of v-heads ((55a)
comes actually in two different versions for transitive/unergative and unaccusative verbs):
(55) a. v-active {uP, uN, uG}
b. v-passive {uP, uN, uG}
c. v-new-passive {3rd, SG, Neuter}
(all speakers)
(all speakers)
(New Passive variant)51
With this proposal, lets turn quickly two the other two properties of the New Passive, the
ban on A-movement and the absence of the definiteness effect. Note that these two properties
are typically assumed to be correlated in that a DP inside vP has to be indefinite only if its
definite counterpart could A-move out of the vP. Taking this correlation for granted, we only
have to account for the ban on A-movement for the internal accusative argument in the New
Passive.
As a starting point, we know that internal arguments of transitive constructions cannot Amove. This can be analyzed as an intervention effect triggered by the external argument
(leaving phase-theoretical considerations aside). v probes for the ϕ-features of the closest DP
and this DP checks afterwards the EPP feature on T via displacement to Spec,TP. Following
the argumentation developed in Sigurðsson (2011), I want to propose, therefore, that Amovement of the internal argument is blocked in the New Passive because the valued ϕfeatures on Voice intervene between T and the internal argument. Due to this blocking, the
EPP feature has to be checked by an expletive in the New Passive.
In principle, it seems to me a welcome result that all three properties of the New Passive
are related to one underlying factor, i.e., valued ϕ-features on v/Voice. Note that I hereby
depart form Sigurðsson’s (2011) analysis of the New Passive who dissociates the ban on Amovement from the assignment of accusative case. The problem that I see with this
dissociation is that it leaves it as a coincidence that the speakers of the New Passive variety
introduced two then independent properties into their grammar at the same time and in the
context of the very same construction. On the other hand, Sigurðsson has good reasons to
dissociate the two processes and I should briefly go into them. The point is that Icelandic has
another construction which shows only the case preserving property of the New Passive but
no ban on A-movement. These are the so-called ‘FATE-accusative’ verbs (or ‘stray
accusative’ verbs; see Haider 2001, Svenonius 2002, 2006, Platzack 2006, Sigurðsson 2005,
Schäfer 2008:chapter 7). This term makes reference to a set of verbs which undergo the
causative alternation, but where, unexpectedly, the sole argument of the intransitive variant
keeps the same case marking as the object of the transitive variant. An example of this
alternation taken from Sigurðsson (2005) is given in (56). (Note that the accusative is
structural as it disappears under passivization). Crucially, however, Fate accusatives differ
from New Passives in that the accusative DP can move out of the vP (and therefore also
shows a definiteness effect) as shown in (56b).
(56) a. Stormurinn
rak bátinn
á land.
the.storm.NOM drove the.boat.ACC on land
‘The storm drove the boat onto land.’
(causative)
place in the lower phase, while DA between T and v will take place in the higher phase. This difference might be
relevant for a grammaticalization process involving features of the lower phase head v.
50
If the internal argument is an anaphor, it probes upwards and gets formally valued by the inherently valued vhead. This means that PoRs in the New Passive variety do not involve any formal repair mechanism anymore.
But the interpretation of PoRs still needs conceptual backup (inherent or natural reflexivity) as the syntax does
not provide a DP which could act as semantic binder at LF.
51
Note that these ϕ-features cannot be equated with the implicit external argument.
32
b. Bátinn
rak á land.
the.boat.ACC drove on land
‘The boat drifted onto land.’
(Fate accusative)
For Sigurðsson (2005, 2011), Fate accusatives differ form the New Passive in that they do not
involve ϕ-features on v/Voice. Therefore A-movement is not blocked. Simplifying his
analysis for reasons of space, the two constructions share, however, the property that their
v/Voice heads (a passive v/Voice head and an unaccusative v/Voice head respectively) carry
the same diacritic which leads to the realisation of accusative morphology on the theme
argument at PF. The fair question is, therefore, how Fate accusatives can be integrated in my
system which seems to necessarily correlate the licensing of the “unexpected accusative” with
the ban on A-movement.
In Schäfer (2008), I followed the proposal in Haider (2001) and Platzack (2006) that Fate
accusatives are hidden transitives which involve a covert external argument pro in subject
position. This covert subject is the same as the one which arguably shows up with Icelandic
weather verbs. The latter never take an overt (semi-)argumental expletive in Icelandic (cf. 57
from Sigurðsson (1989:164, ex. 15a)), but if we believe that every verb must take at least one
semantic argument (due to a ban on empty predication) then Icelandic weather verbs should
involve a covert subject, a specific kind of weather-pro in Spec,v (Sigurðsson 1989, Haider
2001; on the (semi-)argumental status of the “expletive” in weather verbs, see e.g. Rizzi 1986
or Vikner 1995).
(57) Rigndi (*það) mikið í gær ?
rained it
much yesterday
‘Did it rain a lot yesterday?’
If Fate accusatives involve such a covert external argument (pro) which values v/Voice (for
some further empirical motivation see Schäfer (2008) and the references there), then
accusative on the theme follows trivially from the case assignment rule in (53). However, we
must ask why this covert subject does not intervene for A-movement? This question becomes
even more urgent because Icelandic has another construction involving a covert pro-subject
where A-movement of the internal argument is in fact blocked (see also Svenonius
(2002:199) for raising this point). This is the case with the ‘impersonal modal’ construction
(Sigurðsson & Egerland 2009). (58a) vs. (58b) shows that the internal accusative argument
cannot move out of the vP in this construction, arguably because the covert subject intervenes.
(58) a. Hér má ekki auglýsa bókina.
here may not advertise book.the.ACC
b. *Hér má bókina
ekki auglýsa.
here may book.the.ACC not advertise
‘One may not advertise the book here.’
If we want to keep the claim that Fate accusatives take a covert pro subject, we have to
explain why this subject does not intervene for A-movement of the internal argument while
the covert subject in the modal construction does. Note, in this connection, that the
interpretation of the covert subjects in the two constructions clearly differs. In the modal
construction, the subject refers to a human entity similar to English ‘one’, German ‘man’ or
French ‘on’ (see Sigurðsson & Egerland 2009 for a detailed discussion of the interpretation of
this covert subject). The covert pro is, therefore, fully specified for ϕ-features. The subject of
weather verbs, and by hypothesis also of Fate accusative constructions, on the other hand, is
referentially extremely reduced. (For example, it cannot be asked for.) In Schäfer (2008), I
33
proposed, therefore, that weather-pronouns only have a reduced set of φ-features (see also
Szucsich 2007); specifically, they only involve a number-feature but no person-feature and no
gender-feature. I would hypothesize then that the amount of feature specification on pro
determines whether it acts as an intervener for A-movement or not. If it is fully specified, it
intervenes, if it is only partly specified, it does not. (However, this partly specified pro must,
nevertheless, be “strong” enough to trigger ACC on the internal argument). This makes the
prediction that – just as the (hypothetical) subject in Fate accusatives – the subject of weather
verbs should not intervene for A-movement. While weather verbs are normally intransitive, it
is nevertheless possible to combine them with internal arguments as in (59).52 The example
then shows that this prediction is confirmed, i.e. the internal argument leaves the vP if definite
(p.c. Halldor Sigurðsson).
(59) Þá mundi spurningunum
rigna (*spurningunum)
yfir okkur.
then would questions.the.DAT rain
questions.the.DAT over us
‘Then it would rain these questions on us. (We would have to face these questions.)’
8. Personal PoRs
So far, I have discussed PoRs as instances of impersonal passives, i.e., passives which lack a
nominative DP triggering verbal agreement. While the majority of PoRs fit this description,
sometimes PoRs do, in fact, involve such a nominative DP. (I concentrate first on German.
Later on, I will turn to Icelandic, which shows an interesting quirk in the relevant contexts).
Cases in point are passives of double object verbs as in (60a) or cases where the VP contains
an object and a prepositional phrase as in (60b).
(60) a. Anschließend hat er sich
einen Hamburger gekauft.
Afterwards has he REFL.DAT a.ACC hamburger bought
‘Afterwards he bought (himself) a hamburger.’
b. Auf der Konferenz hat er viel Unsinn
von sich
gegeben.
at the conference has he much nonsense.ACC from REFL.DAT given
‘At the conference, he uttered lot’s of nonsense.’
These strings passivize quite well as in (61). In these examples, the accusative theme-DP
shifts to nominative and triggers agreement on the finite auxiliary. I call such passives
personal PoRs. Note that personal PoRs show the very same semantic/conceptual restriction
identified for impersonal PoRs in section 2 in that the relation between the external argument
and the argument expressed by the anaphor must be inherently or naturally reflexive. The
semi-idiomatic example in (60b, 61b) is inherently reflexive (see the discussion about (35)
above). The predicate ‘x buys y for z’ in (60a, 61a) is naturally reflexive in that x is typically
identical to z (see Kemmer 1993: section 3.5.2). Double object constructions that lack this
semantic property typically do not form PoRs.53 This is predicted because, as with impersonal
PoRs, the syntax does not provide an antecedent for the anaphor.
52
The internal argument of Icelandic weather verbs is marked with dative (Maling 2002). Note that the
corresponding German example would use an overt weather-expletive as in (i), suggesting that the Icelandic
example is in fact transitive, not an unergative with a quirky subject replacing the weather-pro of the canonical
weather verb. However, arguments for this conclusion from within Icelandic would be preferable.
(i) Dann hat *(es) tausende Fragen
auf uns geregnet.
then has it thousand questions.ACC on us rained
‘Then it rained thousand questions on us. (The we had to face lots of questions.)’
53
A Google query on 22.2.2012 received 30 hits for “wird sich gekauft” (becomes REFL bought), but zero hits
for “wird sich (selbst) (zu)geschickt” (becomes REFL (SELF) (at)send). The latter predicate is naturally disjoint.
34
(61) a.
b.
Anschließend wurde sich
ein
Hamburger gekauft.
Afterwards was REFL.DAT a.NOM hamburger bought
‘People bought themselves a hamburger.’
Auf der Konferenz wurde viel Unsinn
von sich
gegeben.
At the conference was many nonsense.NOM from REFL.DAT given
‘People uttered lots of nonsense at the conference.’
Personal PoRs pose some questions for my account developed in the last sections. First, why
does the nominative DP not antecede the anaphor? This is of course possible as the example
below shows. There the anaphor probes the tree upwards and gets valued by the (A-moved)
nominative theme leading to an ordinary binding relation at LF.
(62)
Die Gäste
wurden sich
/ einander
vorgestellt.
the guests.NOM were REFL.DAT / each-other.DAT introduced
‘The guests were introduced to each other.’
The only thing I have to say about this question is that, independently of PoRs, any binding
theory must allow for bypassing potential antecedents. Cases in point are active double object
constructions where the direct object can, but does not have to be bound by the indirect object
as in the English example below.
(63) Johnk showed Maryi herselfi/himselfk in the mirror.
The next question is how the anaphor gets valued if the nominative DP does not bind it.
Default Agreement is clearly not at stake as the nominative DP values T (or within the theory
developed in the last section, the passive v-head). My answer to this question builds again on
the dissociation between formal valuation of an anaphor in the syntax, on the one hand, and
translating this valuation into a semantic binding relation at LF, on the other hand.
The derivation I want to propose is shown in (64). I assume a low applicative structure
for double object constructions (Pylkkänen 2008). Passive v probes its c-command domain
and agrees with the variable but no valuation takes place because both are unvalued. But this
time further probing of v beyond the anaphor will meet the DP-theme. This DP values the vhead, and, indirectly, the anaphor, too, because the latter is in an AGREE-relation with v.
Therefore, the anaphor does not trigger a crash at the interfaces. However, since the anaphor
is not in a direct AGREE-relation with a c-commanding DP, no semantic antecedent can be
computed from this derivation at LF. Instead, conceptual licensing has to guide the
interpretation of the anaphor, as was the case with impersonal PoRs.
(64) a. dass sich
ein
Hamburger gekauft wird.
that REFL.DAT a.NOM hamburger bought becomes
‘that people buy a hamburger for themselves.’
35
b.
TP
3
T
vPpassive
!
v’
3
vpass{uP, uN, uG} V
!
ApplP
3
DP{uP, uN, uG} Appl’
3
Appl
DP{P, N, G}
This derivation makes two predictions. First, since the anaphor is not valued via Default
Agreement, such a derivation should be available also in languages lacking this repair
strategy.54 In section 4, I had discussed that Dutch and Norwegian lack impersonal PoRs. The
explanation offered for this in section 6 was that these languages do not have Default
Agreement involving the chain between an anaphor and T (or passive v). If personal PoRs do
not built on Default Agreement, these two languages should in principle allow their
formation.55 Indeed, there is very preliminary indication that personal PoRs are judged better
than impersonal PoRs in Dutch and Norwegian. Jan Wouter Zwart (p.c.) judged the example
in (65) as “not strikingly bad”. Tor Åfarli (p.c.) mentions that examples such as in (66) are
found in colloquial Norwegian and Terje Lohndal (p.c.) agrees that this example is better than
the Norwegian impersonal PoRs discussed in section 4. Note that the Dutch example involves
an inherently reflexive predicate and the Norwegian one involves a naturally reflexive
predicate. As said, this conceptual restriction should also hold for personal PoRs as the
anaphor does not find a DP-antecedent within syntax. However, the significance of these very
preliminary results should be checked with many more examples and speakers. I must leave
this for future research.
(65) Op de workshop moest er
weer een hoop
geklets
on the workshop must there again a heap.NOM nonsense
tot zich genomen worden.
to REFL taken
become
‘On the workshop one had to take in a lot of nonsense again.’
(66) Vi var på puben i går kveld,
We went to the.pub in last night
og det ble kjøpt seg øl
over en lav sko.
and it was bought REFL beer.NOM over a low shoe
‘We went to the pub last night, and one bought oneself beer all the time.’56
54
The formal aspects of this derivation (but not its interpretation at the interface) is also very similar to the one
proposed in Schäfer (2008, to appear) for reflexive anticausatives and reflexive middles which exist in many
languages with SE-reflexives (see section 9).
55
But see the discussion of Icelandic further below in this section. If Dutch ‘zich’ and/or Norwegian ‘seg’ have
the same restriction that I propose for Icelandic ‘sig’ then these two languages are predicted not to form any
PoRs at all because then even the PoRs in (65) and (66) would have to make use of DA.
56
There is actually some discussion in the literature whether non-moved internal arguments in Norwegian
36
The second prediction concerns the PF Spell Out of the anaphor. Although the nominative DP
does not value the anaphor directly, it does so indirectly via the connection with the passive vhead (see the tree in (64b)). This predicts that if the nominative is a 1st or 2nd person pronoun,
the anaphor should actually also show this feature make-up. To test this prediction, consider
the data below which are taken from Plank (1993). (67a, b) provide some context. (67b) is an
active clause which is inherently reflexive. The indirect argument is an anaphor which is
obligatorily bound by the external argument, and the theme is a 2nd person plural pronoun. In
(68), we see four passive versions of this active clause which differ in the following way: In
(68a), the accusative theme has shifted to nominative and agrees with the finite verb and the
indirect object variable is realized as the 3rd person anaphor ‘sich’. The b-example differs in
that the variable is realized as the 2nd person plural pronoun (‘uns’), i.e., it has the same
feature content as the nominative theme and the verbal agreement. In (68c), the theme stays in
the accusative, the verb shows default agreement and the indirect object is realized as the 3rd
person anaphor ‘sich’. In (68d) finally, the theme is in the accusative, the finite verb shows
default agreement and the variable is realized as the 2nd person pronoun ‘uns’, i.e., it shares
the ϕ-features of the theme.57
(67) a. Firma Ai
will sichi
Firma B
einverleiben.
company.NOM A wants REFL.DAT company.ACC B incorporate
‘Company A wants to incorporate/absorbe Company B.’
b. The workers of company B say:
So einfach verleibt
man
sich
uns
nicht ein.
So easily corporates one.NOM REFL.DAT us.ACC not in
‘One does not absorb us so easily.’
(68) a. *So einfach werden
sich
wir
nicht einverleibt.
So easily become.PL REFL.DAT we.NOM not incorporated
b. *So einfach werden
uns
wir
nicht einverleibt.
So easily become.PL us.DAT we.NOM not incorporated
c. ?So einfach wird
sich
uns
nicht einverleibt.
So easily become.SG REFL.DAT us.ACC not incorporated
d. *So einfach wird
uns
uns
nicht einverleibt.
So easily become.SG us.DAT us.ACC not incorporated
Formally, the theory proposed above predicts (68b) to be the grammatical version. However,
beyond any doubt, the only acceptable version is the one in (68c). But note that the string in
(68b) suggests that there is a semantic binding relation between the recipient and the theme
(due to the inherent reflexivity of the verb ‘einverleiben’ (incorporate) the interpretation
would be something like ‘We incorporate ourselves into ourselves’.) The reason is, of course,
the indexical nature of the 2nd person pronouns ‘uns’ and ‘wir’ which necessarily refer to the
same group of individuals involving the speaker. What is going on here, in my opinion, is that
in order to avoid this wrong interpretation speakers adhere to the repair strategy that we know
already from impersonal PoRs, namely Default Agreement. More precisely, the passive vhead and the anaphor agree with each other without valuating each other and, in order to
avoid the misleading interpretation which the surface form of (68b) would bring about, the vpassives keep the accusative or shift to nominative (see e.g. Åfarli 1989). If they keep accusative, this example is
an instance of an impersonal PoR of a ditransitive verb similar to the Icelandic examples discussed in (69).
57
In (68a-d), I keep the canonical order between the indirect and the direct object for reasons of readability. Note
that all judgements remain the same if the order is changed by scrambling. In fact, nominative pronouns typically
precede dative pronouns in the German pronoun cluster.
37
head does not further probe beyond the variable to agree with the theme DP. Instead, Default
Agreement values the agreement chain between the v-head and the variable and, as a
consequence, the theme appears with accusative case (cf. the case-algorithm in 53), the
variable gets the Spell Out as the 3rd person reflexive ‘sich’ and the verb shows default
morphology.
Of course, this proposal leaves open many questions about when and how the grammar
makes available the costly operation of Default Agreement. These are beyond the scope of
this paper. However, it is very interesting in this connection to note that Icelandic uses
Default Agreement quite regularly to form PoRs of ditransitive verbs (while German does so
only in the very specific constellation in (68)). The phenomenon is discussed in Eythórsson
(2007, 2008) and Árnadóttir et al. (2011) under the label ‘Impersonal Ditransitive Reflexive
Construction’ (IDRC). As these authors show, speakers of Icelandic quite generally avoid
personal PoRs. Instead, they keep accusative on the theme and the finite verb and the
participle appear with default agreement. Examples are given in (69). The examples in (70)
show that the theme cannot shift to nominative (although Eythórsson (2007) mentions some
counterexamples). Note in passing that the verbs involved in IDRCs are also either inherently
or naturally reflexive and that examples as in (69) are accepted by speakers who do not accept
ordinary New Passives.
(69) a. Það var fengið
sér
öllara.
it was got.NEU.SG REFL.DAT beer.ACC
‘People got themselves a beer.’
b. Það var keypt
sér
pizzu.
it was bought.NEU.SG REFL.DAT pizza.ACC
‘People bought themselves pizza.’
(70) a. *Það var fenginn
sér
öllari.
it was got.MSC.SG REFL.DAT beer.MSC.SG.NOM
b. *Öllari
var fenginn
sér.
beer.MSC.SG.NOM was got.MSC.SG REFL.DAT
‘People got themselves a beer.’
To make clearer this difference between German and Icelandic, let us turn back to the tree in
(64b), which shows the derivation of PoRs involving ditransitive verbs. The difference seems
to be that in German the variable (‘sich’) allows v to further probe down the tree and to agree
with the theme, while in Icelandic the variable (‘sig’) seems to block further probing of v. As
a consequence, the theme will value the chain between v and the variable in German while
DA will value this chain in Icelandic. Due to the case constraint in (53) this will have as a
result that the theme argument surfaces with nominative in German but with accusative in
Icelandic.58 A broader study of the availability of and the restrictions on Default Agreement in
general and of IDRCs in particular might shed more light on whether this proposal goes into
the right direction or not.
58
This proposal makes interesting predictions for reflexive anticausatives in Icelandic. In the next section (see
also fn. 36), I describe the derivation of reflexive anticausatives (e.g. in German) where crucially the
variable/anaphor has to allow v to bypass and to probe the theme. If ‘sig’ blocks further probing of v, then such a
derivation should be impossible in Icelandic. And in fact Icelandic does not form reflexive anticausatives with
the full reflxive pronoun ‘sig’ but with the affix ‘-st’. Interestingly, this affix seems to be caseless and not be
involved in any agreement processes (see Wood (2012, submitted) for discussion).
38
9. Open issues: potential problems and topics for future research
In this last section, I will adress some open issues, potential problems and directions for future
reasearch that might grow out of my proposal. They relate to the interaction of PoRs with
pronominal expletives, reflexives merged in the external argument position and the so-called
‘Anaphor Agreement Effect’.
In section 6.3, I discussed two strategies how a language can make available impersonal
passives. Leaving aside the question how the EPP on T is checked in impersonal passives,
languages can use either Default Agreement or a nominal expletive, i.e. an expletive that is
inherently equipped with ϕ-features (such as English ‘it’ which is, however, restricted to
argument positions). Holmberg (2002) reports this latter strategy for some Norwegian
dialects. If such expletives can value T (or passive v), they might also be able to formally
value the variable/anaphor in PoRs. Since no Default Agreement would be necessary, one
might predict PoRs to be grammatical. However, the Norwegian dialects discussed by
Holmberg (2002) do not seem to license impersonal PoRs any more than those dialects using
featureless expletives (locative adverbs such as English ‘there’). There are two ways how this
could be derived. Either, passive v/Voice is a phase and the expletive is merged outside of the
phase, say directly in Spec,TP, where it values the chain between T and passive v/Voice. In
this case, the expletive might enter the derivation too late to formally value the anaphor inside
vP. Alternatively, the expletive might enter an AGREE-relation with the anaphor and, in turn,
value it. In this case, we must ask how the CI-interface would interpret this structure. Since
the expletive is fully nominal and c-commands the variable, the CI-interface should try to
compute a semantic binding relation between the pronominal expletive and the anaphor. But
since the expletive lacks a thematic role no such interpretation can be computed. Therefore,
the derivation necessarily leads to semantic gibberish.
If anaphors can be valued by default agreement and can afterwards be interpreted with the
help of conceptual knowledge about events and their participants, there might be the danger
of overgeneration. Specifically we must ask what would happen if we merge an anaphor in a
verb’s external argument position?
First, an anaphor could be merged in Spec,vP of an unergative verb, get formally valued by
DA and receive accusative at PF ([TP T [vP REFLACC v [VP sleeps]]] ). The problem with this
derivation is that, at the CI-interface, no interpretation can be computed for the anaphor,
since, at no level of representation, the sentence contains a second argument which could be
used as an antecedent (either via formal binding, or via conceptual considerations as in PoRs).
Second, the anaphor could be merged in the external argument position of a transitive verb.
In this case, the derivation would be similar to the one proposed for personal PoRs in section
8. v would search its m-command domain for a goal. It would first agree with the anaphor in
its specifier but no valuation could take place at this point. Afterwards, v would agree with the
internal argument (a DP fully specified for ϕ-features), which would value v, and, indirectly,
also the anaphor. At PF, the internal argument would get nominative case and the anaphor
would get accusative case. Furthermore, the anaphor would be spelled out with the ϕ-features
of the internal argument. Turning to the CI-interface, once again, no ordinary binding relation
can be computed on the basis of this syntactic derivation since the anaphor is not in a direct
AGREE-relation with a (c-commanding) DP antecedent. In Schäfer (2008, to appear), I argued
that such derivations are used to form reflexive anticausatives (71a) or reflexive middles
(71b) in German and other Germanic languages (as well as in Romance and Slavic; see fn. 58
for Icelandic). In these constructions, the reflexive pronoun does not carry any interpretation
and is present only for purely formal reasons, namely to fill the external argument position
syntactically without introducing an external argument semantically. This expletive use of the
reflexive pronoun is possible exactly because it lacks a c-commanding antecendent.
39
(71) a. [CP weil [TP T [vP sichACC v [VP die TürNOM öffnet]]]
because
REFL
the door opens
‘... because the door opens’
b. [CP weil [TP T [vP sichACC v [VP das BuchNOM gut verkauft]]]
because
REFL
the book
well sells
‘... because the book sells well’
What would happen with a derivation as in (71), if the verb involved were inherently or
naturally reflexive as in (72)? While the anaphor would lack a c-commanding DP-antecedent,
perhaps conceptual knowledge could lead to an ordinary transitive/active interpetation similar
to PoRs.
(72) a. [CP weil [TP T [vP sichACC v [VP MariaNOM wäscht]]]
as
REFL
Mary
washes
‘... because Mary washes’
I would like to suggest that this is not possible because the structure provides a Principle C
violation. The reflexive pronoun (which has a thematic interpretation) would c-command a
co-indexed R-expression. Of course, this presupposes that Principle C effects cannot be
circumvented by conceptual considerations, while Principle A effects can. A full integration
of Principle C is beyond the scope of the present paper.
As a basic assumption in this paper, I followed earlier proposals in the idea to encode the
relation between an anaphor and its antecedent via a syntactic AGREE-relation (see the
references in section 6.2). There are different motivations for this move, but one central one is
the so-called ‘Anaphor Agreement Effect’, which such theories are intended to derive. This
term refers to the observation that across languages anaphors are excluded from syntactic
positions that trigger verbal agreement (Maling 1984, Everaert 1990, Rizzi 1990, Woolford
1999, Tucker 2010). In NOM-ACC languages, these are basically argument positions to
which nominative is assigned. The idea is that arguments in such positions have to value a
functional head, say T, with ϕ-features and anaphors, which are by hypothesis devoid of
inherent ϕ-features, cannot fulfill this job. As a consequence anaphors in such a position lead
to a crash. Note that passives of verbs with a reflexive pronoun in structurally case marked
object positions (PoRs) are exactly a case in point. As I argued, some languages can rescue
the latter by making use of Default Agreement, i.e. by unburdening the anaphor from the duty
to trigger verbal agreement.
The question that I want to address is whether the concept of Default Agreement leads to
unwanted consequences for this general approach to the Anaphor Agreement Effect. Consider
Icelandic DAT-NOM constructions where the dative subject locally binds the nominative
object. As we see in (73) and (74), the internal argument cannot be realized by an anaphor.
Instead, a (intensified) pronoun has to be used (Everaert 1990). (Everaert shows that the
pronoun cannot be analyzed as an anaphor in disguise; for example, it allows for sloppy as
well as strict readings. Note also that a dative subject can antecede an anaphor if the latter is
marked with genitive case or embedded in a nominative DP.)
(73) a. *Honum finnst sig
veikur.
Him.DAT finds REFL.ACC sick
b. Honum finnst ?hann / hann
sjálfur (vera) veikur.
Him.DAT finds he.NOM/ he.NOM SELF (be) sick
‘He considers himself sick.’
40
(74) a. *Maríu
leiðist
sig.
Maria.DAT finds.boring REFL.ACC
b. Maríu
leiðist
hún
sjálf.
Maria.DAT finds.boring her.NOM SELF
‘Maria considers herself boring.’
The question is why the a-examples cannot be rescued by Default Agreement. The derivation
would look as depicted in (75): the anaphor probes upwards, agrees with the dative subject
and gets valued by it. This will lead to a semantic binding relation between the two at the CIinterface. For some reason, the ϕ-features which the anaphor aquires from the dative cannot
be used to trigger verbal agreement (Note that this assumption is necessary for all theories
assuming that syntactic agreement is at the base of anaphoric relations. Somehow, the fact
that a quirky subject itself cannot trigger verbal agreement makes it impossible for the
anaphor which agrees with the quirky subject to trigger verbal agreement indirectly).
Afterwards, v and T form an unvalued agreement chain. In order to let this structure survive,
Default Agreement values this chain in a similar vein as in canonical impersonal passives (see
fn. 48).
(75)
[TP T [vP DPDAT v [VP V REFLACC]]]
For some reason, such a derivation is not available. Instead, the anaphor is replaced by a
locally bound pronoun, in contradiction to what Principle B would suggest. Since such a
pronoun enters the derivation with valued ϕ-features, it can value v without problem.
Replacing an anaphor with a pronoun is arguably an alternative repair strategy to rescue
structures from the Anaphor Agreement Effect (cf. Fanselow 1989, 1991, Burzio 1998). This
leads to two questions. Why does DA not work in (73a) and (74a). And why are PoRs not
rescued by inserting a pronoun in object position? Concerning the first question, we could
suggest that DA is somehow restricted to passive structures. But this does not seem to be
correct because at least some speakers of Italian allow exactly this repair strategy in similar
constructions as shown in (76b) (Rizzi 1990, Woolford 1999:fn. 5, Tucker 2010). (See
Woolford (1999) for further instances were Default Agreement avoids the Anaphor
Agreement Effect.) I leave the question why a language uses one or the other repair strategy
in this context for future research. Note that, as in Icelandic, most speakers of Italian would
replace the reflexive in (76) with a nominative pronoun.
(76) a.
b.
*A loro
interessano solo se
stessi.
to them.DAT interest.3.PL only REFL selves
(?)A loro
interessa
solo se
stessi.
to them.DAT interest.3.SG only REFL selves
‘They only care about themselves.’
This leaves the other question, namely why PoRs are not rescued by replacing the anaphor in
object position with a pronoun, i.e. why a string such as ‘He was washed’ cannot get the
interpretation ‘He washed himself’. To explain this, we can follow the proposal in Kratzer
(1996) that the implicit argument of passives, although it cannot bind an anaphor as I argued
in section 5, nevertheless triggers Principle B and C effects. That is, the implicit argument of
passives behaves like a weak implicit argument in the sense of Landau (2010); it is active for
some but not all grammatical processes.
41
10. Conclusions
This paper discussed Passives of Reflexive Verbs (PoRs), which exist in a subset of languages
with impersonal passives and SE-reflexives, namely German and Icelandic. This construction
poses questions for standard theories of case and anaphoric binding. With respect to Case
Theory, the accusative case on the reflexive pronoun contradicts the predictions of Burzio’s
Generalization. I argued that there is no reason to assume that an idiosyncracy in the case
system is at play and that this accusative should be analyzed as ordinary structural object case.
Concerning Binding Theory, I showed that the formation of PoRs is conceptually restricted to
inherently and naturally reflexive contexts. I argued that lexical theories of reflexivity cannot
account for the availability of PoRs because the reflexive pronoun in PoRs behaves like a
syntactic and semantic argument and the reflexive relation found in PoRs is not confined to
the verbal co-argument domain. However, a standard version of Principle A of the Binding
Theory cannot account for PoRs either because a closer inspection of PoRs showed that the
implicit argument of the passive is not the formal, i.e. syntactic antecedent of the reflexive
pronoun.
I proposed that the reflexive pronoun in PoRs is an ordinary anaphor/a variable and that it
should therefore be subject to some version of Principle A of the Binding Theory. I followed
recent proposals which reformulate the traditional Principle A in terms of a syntactic AGREErelation between an anaphor and its antecedent. Since in PoRs the anaphor cannot find a ccommanding DP-antecedent, PoRs lead to a Principle A violation in most languages. I argued,
however, that in German and Icelandic a formal violation of Principle A can be avoided
because Default Agreement (DA), a last resort repair operation, can formally value the φfeatures of the variable. DA only avoids a formal crash of PoRs at the interfaces but it does
not lead to a semantic interpretation of the variable. Therefore, a successful interpretation of
PoRs depends on an inherently or naturally reflexive context. Finally, I proposed an AGREEbased version of a dependent case approach which allows the application of Default
Agreement to trigger structural accusative on the reflexive pronoun in PoRs. I used this case
theory to elaborate the hypothesis that the Icelandic New Passive developed out of PoRs due
to a grammaticalization process where the outcome of DA was reinterpreted as a lexical
property of a passive v-head. Finally I discussed personal PoRs where the passive vP contains
an anaphor and a referential object DP (e.g., PoRs involving ditransitive verbs). The theory
developed here predicts these to be more readily available than impersonal PoRs (i.e., even in
Dutch and Norwegian) because they do not depend on the costly operation of DA. While
there are some preliminary indications that this might be empirically correct, this topic awaits
further research. Furthermore, while impersonal PoRs seem to work quite similar in German
and Icelandic, this parallelism breaks partly down in the context of personal PoRs. While the
referential direct object gets nominative case and triggers verbal agreement in German, it gets
accusative case in Icelandic. I hypothesized that the reason for this might be that German
‘sich’ allows v to bypass and to probe for the object DP while Icelandic ‘sig’ blocks further
probing of the object DP by v. As a result, only the Icelandic construction involves Default
Agreement, which in turn triggers accusative case on the object. However, this proposal as
well as the broader questions about when and why a language makes available the process of
Default Agreement must be left for future research. In any case, it seems that even PoRs
involving ditransitve verbs are subject to the same conceptual restriction as impersonal PoRs:
they are acceptable only in inherently and naturally reflexive contexts.
42
Appendix 1: Results of the Internet query in section 2
Recall from section 2 that the number of matches in A and B result from a single search query
while those in C result from 12 different search queries.
A. inherently reflexive/reciprocal verb
‘sich benehmen’ (to behave): search string “sich benommen wird” - 54 matches
(77) Es ist schlimm wie sich benommen wird
It is bad
how REFL behaved
becomes
‘It is bad how people behave.’
‘sich streiten’ (to quarrel): search string “sich gestritten wird” - more than 100 matches
(78) Ich verstehe echt nicht, wieso sich gestritten wird
I understand really not why REFL quarreled becomes
‘I really do not understand why people querry.’
B.1 grooming verbs
‘waschen’ (to wash): search string “wird sich gewaschen” - more than 100 matches
(79) Dann wird
sich gewaschen, schön gemacht, umgezogen
Then becomes REFL washed,
nice made, clothes-changed
und die Zähne geputzt
and the teeth brushed
‘Then people wash, make themselves up, change their clothes and brush their teeth.’
B.2 verbs of translational motion
‘bewegen’ (to move): search string “wird sich bewegt” - more than 100 matches
(80) im Musikunterricht wird
sich bewegt, im Kunstunterricht wird
in.the music-class
becomes REFL moved, in.the art-class
becomes
der Pinsel geschwungen
the brush swung
‘In the music class, people move, in the art class, people swing the brush.’
B.3 verbs of non-translational motion
‘verbeugen’(to bow): search string “wird sich verbeugt” - 40 matches
(81) Vor
den Prinzen wird
sich verbeugt
in.front.of the princes becomes REFL bowed
‘People bow down in front of the princes.’
B.4 verbs of change in body posture
‘hinsetzen’ (to sit down): search string “wird sich hingesetzt” - more than 100 matches
(82) Danach wird
sich hingesetzt und den Nachbarn ausgefragt
Later becomes REFL sit-down and the neighbour asked
43
nach wohin, warum, usw.59
about where, why, etc.
‘Later, people sit down and ask the neighbour about where to go, why, etc.’
B.5 verbs of antagonistic events
‘prügeln’ (to trash): search string “wird sich geprügelt” - more than 100 matches
(83) Da wird
sich geprügelt, der geliebte Nachbars-Hund entführt, ...
there becomes REFL beaten, the beloved neighbour-dog kidnapped
‘People beat each other, they kidnapp the beloved dog of the neighbour, ...’
B.6 verbs of affectionate actions
‘küssen’ (to kiss): search string “wird sich geküsst” - 30 matches
(84) Ringe werden getauscht, es wird
sich geküsst und fertig ist die Sache
Rings become exchanged, it becomes REFL kissed and ready is the matter
‘People exchange rings, they kiss and then it is done.’
B.7 social/encountering actions
‘treffen’ (to meet): search string: “sich getroffen wird ” - more than 100 matches
(85) Wann sich getroffen wird
steht noch nicht fest
when REFL met
becomes stands not yet fixed
‘It is not fixed yet when to meet.’
B.8 verbs of interlocution
‘unterhalten’ (to talk to s.o.): search string “sich unterhalten wurde” - 73 matches
(86) Worüber
sich unterhalten wurde, haben wir nicht erfahren
about-what REFL talked
became have we not found.out
‘We did not figure out what they were talking about.’
B.9 verbs of emotion
‘wundern’ (to wonder): search string “wird sich gewundert” - more than 100 matches
(87) Und dann wird
sich gewundert, warum man keinen Schritt weiter kommt
and then becomes REFL wondered why one no
step further comes
‘And then people wonder why one does not make any progress.’
B.10 emotive speech actions
‘beschweren’ (to complain): search string “wurde sich beschwert” - more than 100 matches
(88) In vielen Reviews wurde sich beschwert, dass ...
in many reviews was REFL complained that
‘In many reviews people complained that ... .’
59
This example involves a VP-conjunction, where the object of the first conjunct is the reflexive pronoun ‘sich'
and the object of the second conjunct is the DP ‘den Nachbarn’ (the.ACC neighbour). This second DP is overtly
marked for accusative case. This provides further evidence that the reflexive pronoun in PoRs is marked with
accusative case. In my judgment, nominative case on this second DP would be equally good. A possible
explanation might be that this example is ambiguous between a VP and a vP conjunction.
44
B.11 simple cognitive events
‘überlegen’ (to consider): search string “wird sich überlegt” - 31 matches
(89) Es wird
sich überlegt, wie man die Zuschauer entschädigen kann
it becomes REFL considered how one the audience compensate can
‘People thought about how to pay compensation to the audience.’
B.12 verbs of perception
‘anschauen’ (look at): search string “wird sich angeschaut” - 48 matches
(90) Auch das Opel-Problemforum wird
sich angeschaut
Also the Opel-problem-forum becomes REFL at-looked
‘People also looked at the forum for problems with Opel.’
B.13 intentive verbs
‘wünschen’ (to desire): search string “wird sich gewünscht” - 25 matches
(91) Auch ein Kino wird
sich gewünscht, genau wie Konzerte, ...
Also a cinema becomes REFL desired
exactly like concerts
‘People wanted to have a cinema, exactly like concerts, ... .’
C. naturally disjoint (transitive) verbs
‘schneiden’ (to cut): search string for example “sich geschnitten wurde” - 3 matches
(92) Dazu
lagen auch noch Glasscherben im Hauptpool,
In-addition lay also even glas-fragments in-the main-pool,
an denen sich geschnitten wurde!
at which REFL cut
became
‘In addition, there was broken glas in the main pool at which people cut themselves.’
‘zerstören’ (to destroy): search string for example “sich (selbst) zerstört wird” - 0 matches
‘töten’ (to kill): Search string for example “wurde sich getötet” - 1 match
(93) Doch wie kann Menschlichkeit in einem Geschäft existieren,
But how can humanness
in a
business exist,
das darauf hinausläuft das einander getötet wird?
which amounts-to
that each other killed becomes
‘But how can humanness exist in a business, in which people kill each other?’
‘verletzen’ (to hurt): search string for example “wird sich verletzt” - 10 match60
(94) Es wird
sich verletzt, es wird
probiert, getestet, therapiert
It becomes REFL hurt, it becomes tried,
tested, therapy-made
‘People hurt themselves, try different things, test different things, make a therapy.’
‘loben’ (to praise): search string for example “sich selbst gelobt wurde” - 11 matches
60
Some of the matches with ‘verletzen’ (to hurt) come from bulletin boards for borderline patients. For this
community it is “natural” to hurt oneself. However, other examples have a reciprocal interpretation which does
not allow such an explanation.
45
(95) wenn ... über alles
Mögliche geredet, geschimpft und sich selbst gelobt wurde
when ... about everything possible talked, blustered and REFL self praised became
‘when people talk about all possible things, bluster and praise themselves.’
‘beschuldigen’ (to accuse): search string for example “wurde sich beschuldigt” - 3 matches
(96) Da wurde sich beschuldigt, angepflaumt und geschmollt
there was REFL accused,
flamed
and sulked
‘People accuse each other, flame each other and they sulk.’
‘angreifen’ (to attack): search string for example “wird sich angegriffen” - 5 matches
(97) Da wird
sich angegriffen, aufgesprungen und gekniffen und gezwickt
There becomes REFL attacked
jumped-up
and pinched and tweaked
‘People attack each other, jump up and pinch and tweak each other.’
‘beladen’ (to load): search string for example “sich beladen wird” - 1 match
(98) ... sondern mit einer Menge von Lehrern sich beladen wird
but
with a
lot
of teachers REFL loaded becomes
‘People load themselves with many different teachers.’
‘kritisieren’ (to) critisize: search string for example “sich kritisiert wird” - 0 matches
‘einsperren’ (to lock in): search string for example “sich selbst eingesperrt wird” - 1 match
(99) Vielmehr die Frage, wie dadurch sich selbst eingesperrt wird?
rather
the question how thereby REFL SELF in-locked becomes
‘Rather, the questions is, how people thereby lock themselves in.’
‘aussperren’ (to lock out): search string for example “sich ausgesperrt wurde” - 1 match
(100) weil
der Schlüssel verloren gegangen ist oder sich ausgesperrt wurde
because the key
lost
went
is or RELF locked-out became
‘Because the key got lost or people locked themselves out.’
‘beobachten’ (to watch): search string for example “wird einander beobachtet” - 2 matches
(101) Es wird einander beobachtet, und der andere wird
wie ein Feind betrachtet
It becomes each-other watched
and the other becomes as an enemy seen
‘People watch each other and the other one is seen as one’s emeny.’
Appendix 2: Test sentences of the questionnaire study in section 2
inherently reflexive verbs (i-ref):
(I.act) Viele Jahre lang hat man sich einfach so durchgewurschtelt.
many years long has one REFL simply so through-muddled
‘One simply muddled through for many years.’
(I.pas) Viele Jahre lang wurde sich einfach so durchgewurschtelt.
46
many years long became REFL simply so through-muddled
(II.act) Auf dem Spielplatz toben
sie sich dann richtig aus.
at the playground let.steam.of they REFL then well PART
‘They let steam of at the the playground.’
(II.pas) Auf dem Spielplatz wird
sich dann richtig ausgetobt.
at the playground becomes REFL then well PART-let.steam.of
(III.act) Erst danach
erkundigten sie sich nach den Preisen.
only afterwards inquired
they REFL after the prices
‘They asked about the prices only afterwards.’
(III.pas) Erst danach
wurde sich nach den Preisen erkundigt.
only afterwards was REFL about the prices inquired
(IV.act) Trotzdem
weigert man sich, die Kosten zu übernehmen.
Nevertheless refused one REFL the expenses to over-take
‘Nevertheless, one refused to take over the expenses.’
(IV.pas) Trotzdem wird
sich geweigert, die Kosten zu übernehmen.
Nevertheless becomes REFL refused
the expenses to over-take
inherently reciprocal verbs (i-rec):
(I.act) Nach dem Streit vertrugen sie sich dann aber doch wieder.
after the fight got.along they REFL then after-all again
‘After the fight, they got along with each other again.’
(I.pas) Nach dem Streit wurde sich dann aber doch wieder vertragen.
after the fight became REFL then after-all again gotten.along
(II.act) Über ethnische Grenzen hinweg freundet
man sich kaum an.
Across ethnical borders away makes.friends one REFL rarely PART.
‘People rarely make friends outside of their ethnical group.’
(II.pas) Über ethnische Grenzen hinweg wird
sich kaum angefreundet.
Across ethnical borders away becomes REFL rarely PART-made.friend.
(III.act) Als Termin
einigte man sich auf den Dienstag.
as appointment.time agreed one REFL at the Tuesday
‘One agreed on Tuesday for the appointment.’
(III.pas) Als Termin
wurde sich auf den Dienstag geeinigt.
as appointment.time became REFL at the Tuesday agreed
(IV.act) Über den Unterhalt
streiten sie sich dann jahrelang.
about the child.support argue they REFL then years.long
‘They argue for years about the child support.’
(IV.pas) Über den Unterhalt
wird
sich dann jahrelang gestritten.
about the child.support becomes REFL then years.long argued
naturally reflexive verbs (n-ref):
(I.act) Vor der Feierstunde zogen
sie sich noch schnell um.
before the ceremony changed.dress they REFL yet quickly PART
‘Before the ceremony, they quickly changed their dresses.’
(I.pas) Vor der Feierstunde wurde sich noch schnell umgezogen.
before the ceremony became REFL yet quickly PART-changed.dress
(II.act) Mit Freude
erinnert man sich an den letzten Titelgewinn.
with happyness remembers one REFL at the last championship
‘One remembers the last championship with happyness.’
(II.pas) Mit Freude
wird
sich an den letzten Titelgewinn erinnert.
with happyness becomes REFL at the last championship remembered
(III.act) Allzuoft entfernen sie sich heimlich von der Unfallstelle.
47
too.often move.away they REFL silently from the scene.of.accident
‘Too often, they silently leave the scene of accident.’
(III.pas) Allzuoft wird
sich heimlich von der Unfallstelle
entfernt.
too.often becomes REFL silently from the scene.of.accident moved.away
(IV.act) Im Mittelalter rasierte man sich natürlich immer nass.
in.the middle.ages shaved one REFL of.course always wet
‘In the middle ages, one shaved always wet of course.’
(IV.pas) Im Mittelalter wurde sich natürlich immer nass rasiert.
in.the middle.ages became REFL of.course always wet shaved
naturally reciprocal verbs (n-rec):
(I.act) Auf dem Volksfest prügelten sie sich wieder heftigst.
at the folk-festival beat
they REFL again wildely
‘At the folk festival, they beat each other again wildely.’
(I.pas) Auf dem Volksfest wurde sich wieder heftigst geprügelt.
at the folk-festival was REFL again wildely beaten
(II.act) Bei der Ankunft begrüßte man sich erst einmal herzlich.
at the arrival welcomed one REFL first of.all cordially
‘At the arrival, one first of all welcomed each other cordially.’
(II.pas) Bei der Ankunft wurde sich erst einmal herzlich begrüßt.
at the arrival became REFL first of.all cordially welcomed
(III.act) In solchen Filmen küssen sie sich nämlich andauernd.
in such
movies kiss
they REFL to.wit permanently
‘In such movies, they kiss all the time.’
(III.pas) In solchen Filmen wird
sich nämlich andauernd geküsst.
in such
movies becomes REFL to.wit permanently kissed
(IV.act) Anschließend unterhält man sich lange über den Hauptdarsteller.
afterwards
chats
one REFL long about the main-actor
‘Afterwards one chats for a long time about the main actor.’
(IV.pas) Anschließend wird
sich lange über den Hauptdarsteller unterhalten.
afterwards
becomes REFL long about the main-actor
chatted
naturally disjoint verbs in a reflexive construal (nd-ref):
(I.act) Im Kunstunterricht photographieren sie sich mit Hilfe eines Spiegels.
in.the art-class
photograph
they REFL with help of-a mirror
‘In the art class, they photograph themselves with the help of a a mirror.’
(I.pas) Im Kunstunterricht wird
sich mit Hilfe eines Spiegels photographiert.
in.the art.class
becomes REFL with help of-a mirror photographed
(II.act) Nach dem Sturz verarztete man sich mit einem Druckverband.
after the accident treated one REFL with a
compression-bandage
‘After the accident, one treated oneself with a compression bandage.’
(II.pas) Nach dem Sturz wird
sich mit einem Druckverband
verarztet.
after the accident becomes REFL with a
compression-bandage treated
(III.act) Wegen der
Daten-CD zeigten sie sich bei der Polizei an.
because of-the data-CD accused they REFL at the police PART
‘Because of the data-CD, they pressed charges against themselves at the police
station.’
(III.pas) Wegen der
Daten-CD wurde sich bei der Polizei angezeigt.
because of-the data-CD became REFL at the police PART-accused
(IV.act) Aus Angst sperrt man sich dann im Keller
ein.
due.to fear locks one REFL then in.the basement in
48
‘Because one is afraid, one locks oneself into the basement.’
(IV.pas) Aus Angst wird
sich dann im Keller
eingesperrt.
due.to fear becomes REFL then in.the basement in-locked
naturally disjoint verbs in a reciprocal construal (nd-rec):
(I.act) Oftmals behindern sie sich durch die enge Startaufstellung.
often
impede they REFL due.to the tight starting-lineup
‘Often, they impede each other due to the tight starting linup.’
(I.pas) Oftmals wird
sich durch die enge Startaufstellung behindert.
often becomes REFL due.to the tight starting-lineup impeded
(II.act) Schon vor
dem Startschuss beobachtete man sich argwöhnisch.
already before the starting-shot watches
one REFL distrustfully
‘Even before the starting shot, they watch each other distrustfully.’
(II.pas) Schon vor
dem Startschuss wurde sich argwöhnisch beobachtet.
already before the starting-shot was REFL distrustful watched
(III.act) Hinter verschlossenen Türen kritisierten sie sich ziemlich ungehemmt.
behind closed
doors critizised they REFL quite
unresistedly
‘Behind closed doors, they critisized each other quite unresistedly.’
(III.pas) Hinter verschlossenen Türen wurde sich ziemlich ungehemmt kritisiert.
behind closed
doors became REFL quite
unresistedly critizised
(IV.act) Im Wartesaal
starren sie sich fast immer gelangweilt an.
in.the waiting-room stare they REFL almost always bored
at
‘In the waiting room, they almost always stare at each other in a bored way.’
(IV.pas) Im Wartesaal
wird
sich fast immer gelangweilt angestarrt.
in.the waiting-room becomes REFL almost always bored
at-stared
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