Minimal pronouns, logophoricity and long‐distance reflexivisation in Avar

Abstract

This paper discusses two morphologically related anaphoric pronouns in Avar (Avar-Andic, Nakh-Daghestanian) and proposes that one of them should be treated as a minimal pronoun that receives its interpretation from a k-operator situated on a phasal head whereas the other is a logophoric pronoun denoting the author of the reported event.Studia Linguistica 71(1-2) 2017, pp. 154-177.1 The romanisation I adopt here differs very slightly from that in Yamada (2013). To avoid confusion, the Roman-to-Cyrillic correspondences are as follows, where the apostrophe represents ejectivity:The romanisation above is similar to the orthography of Standard Avar in not making a distinction between the lateral affricate, and the lateral fricative, which itself can be strong and weak, all of which are standardly written as лъ, or ł in the system adopted here. Yakov Testelets (p.c.) notes, however, that these distinctions have neutralised in most dialects. Finally, such processes as glide formation are only rendered in those cases where they are reflected orthographically in the original spelling. 2 The present paper uses the following abbreviations in glosses: 1 = First person, ABL = ablative, ABS = absolutive, ACC = accusative, CAUS = causative, CM = class marker, CNJ=conjunction, COMP = complementizer, CVB = converb, DAT = dative, ERG = ergative, F = feminine, FUT = future, GEN = genitive, INESS = inessive, INF = negative, LOC = locative, LOG = logophoric, M = masculine, MSD = masdar, N = neuter, NEG = negative, NOM = nominative, OBL = oblique, PFV = perfective, PL = plural, PRS = present, PST = past, PTCP = participle, Q = question particle, SG=singular, TOP = topic.

The Anaphor Agreement Effect is not about featural deficiency: Evidence from Avar

“…As a first approximation, and setting aside the issues of non-complementary distribution of the various types of anaphoric expression in Avar (though see Testelets & Toldova 1998;Rudnev 2017 for an overview and discussion), the internal composition of Avar anaphors, diaphors, exophors and pronouns are broadly in line with Middleton 's (2018) approach. 10 According to Middleton (2018), anaphors and pronouns across languages display systematic containment relations, either overt or covert, represented in (27).…”

“…I return to causativisation and its interaction with reflexivisation in §2.3. 5 Rudnev (2017) demonstrates that the Avar reflexive žiwgo is a bona fide anaphor sharing a host of properties with reflexive pronouns in other languages. This reflexive can only take 3rd person antecedents, both singular and plural.…”

Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese

“…These predicates describing thoughts or states of mind are usually licensers for logophoric use (Charnavel & Zlogar 2015, Rudnev 2017. For example, Rudnev (2017) finds a simple reflexive in Avar, z̆iw, which is only allowed to be longdistance bound, and argues that it must be a logophor because the matrix predicate must be 'a verb of saying, belief, or perception' (attitudinal predicate) to license the logophor in the embedded clause (Rudnev 2017: 165-166).…”

Reflexives and Reflexivity

“…There is, however, a well-known class of exceptions to this condition. In coordinate structures, in adjunct positions, and in picture NPs, himself is exempt from the local binding requirement (e.g., Ross 1970;Zribi-Hertz 1989;Pollard & Sag 1992;Reinhart & Reuland 1991):…”