Polymorphemic Long Distance Reflexives in Singapore Malay

Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon

Much of the recent literature on anaphora has dealt with an examination of differences among languages in locality restrictions on reflexives. E.g., English reflexives require local (roughly, clausemate) antecedents while in Chinese the antecedent can be non-local, any number of clauses from the anaphor:

(1) *Poirot_i thinks that Mary hurt himself_i.

(2) John_i believes that Bill_j said that Tom_k shaved

himself_*i/*j/k.

(3) Zhangsan_i renwei Lisi_j zhidao Wangwu_k xihuan ziji_i/j/k

Zhangsan thinks Lisi knows Wangwu likes self

In the generative literature on long distance reflexives, it has been argued that, contary to the observed surface pattern, reflexives must universally have local antecedents. The appearance of non-locality seen in (3) is treated as due to LF movement of the reflexive (or some analogous device). The LF movement approach predicts correctly a number of otherwise mysterious typological properties of the construction which are found in a wide variety of genetically unrelated languages:

(4)

a. Long distance reflexives are monomorphemic.

b. Long distance reflexives are subject oriented.

c. In languages without subject verb agreement, long distance reflexives manifest the Blocking Effect.

On initial examination, reflexives in Malay appear similar to those in Chinese etc. However, Malay reflexives appear to be counter examples to the typological predictions of (4): They are polymorphemic; they are not subject oriented; they do not manifest the Blocking Effect:

(5) Ahmad_i tahu Salmah_j akan membeli baju untuk diri-nya_i/j.

Ahmad know Salmah will buy clothes for self-3p-sg

'Ahmad knows Salmah will buy clothes for him/herself.'

Are these true counter examples to the typological predictions of the LF movement approach, or is there an independent explanation of the apparent counter examples?

We argue that, contrary to initial appearance, long distance reflexives in Malay do not constitute counter examples to the typological generalizations about long distance reflexives which have been drawn on the basis of a wide variety of languages. Rather, the facts of Malay provide evidence that in the Malay lexicon pronouns and bound anaphors have been conflated, in a fashion similar to, but more extreme than, the conflation of pronouns and bound anaphors in Romance and Germanic. We provide evidence that the form dirinya that appears to be a long distance reflexive is in fact ambiguous between a local reflexive and a pronoun. Thus, Malay reflexives are not true counter examples to the typological predictions of the LF movement approach