SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis investigates the different types of Chinese reflexive constructions and presents an analysis of these, attempting to integrate syntactic, morphological and discourse-related aspects of the phenomena. In Chinese, two distinct types of reflexive have been widely discussed in the literature: simplex reflexive ziji 'self', which is a long-distance reflexive, and complex reflexives pronoun + ziji, such as taziji 'himself', which must be locally bound (see Huang and Tang (1991) among others). In addition, Chinese has a kind of double reflexive construction, such as ziji-benshen, and reflexive clitics zi and ziwo. This thesis argues that reflexive clitics must be locally bound; and that under certain conditions, both simplex reflexive ziji and complex reflexives such as taziji and ziji- benshen can be locally bound, long-distance bound, or even free in an entire sentence. When the reflexive is locally bound, it must fall under the principles of the Binding Theory; when it is long-distance bound or free in an entire sentence, it is subject to logophoric interpretation. Whether a reflexive is subject to the Binding Theory or logophoric interpretation is determined by the interaction between the reflexive itself and the verb which governs it, which illustrates from whose point of view the report is made. I propose that every type of reflexive has two structures: one is an anaphoric structure, while the other is a logophoric structure. When a verb assigns an anaphoric theta role, the reflexive can have the anaphoric structure and the head of the reflexive NP is allowed to adjoin the head of the VP at LF. In this sense, the anaphoric reading is the result of movement of the head of the reflexive at LF. If a reflexive cannot receive an anaphoric theta role, it can have a logophoric structure. In the logophoric structure, the head of the reflexive DP must be a pro in order to receive the disjoint theta role from the verb. In this sense, the logophoric reading is a result of coindexing the pro with its antecedent. This thesis provides an explanation for local binding and long-distance binding within the Chomskyan paradigm and proposes a number of constraints for logophoric reflexives.