Darius Adjong will present a research seminar.
A closer look at intensifiers, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns: evidence from Buli, English, and Akan.
Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are sometimes considered to be formally identical in many languages. Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns have also been said to be formally identical in some languages (see König, Siemund & Töpper 2013; Maslova & Nedjalkov 2013). In this talk, I show that none of these apply to Buli (Gur; Niger-Congo) and Akan (Kwa; Niger-Congo). The original reflexive markers in Buli and Akan are plain, unspecific pronouns that usually have disjoint readings. To express reflexivity, Buli makes use of its intensifier dék to indicate the referential identity between a subject-coreferential pronoun and a subject. Akan has a similar strategy, and uses the grammaticalized body part noun hõ (lit. ‘body’) to indicate the referential identity between a subject-coreferential pronoun and a subject. Buli and Akan show a typologically interesting coding pattern. Dék is reduplicated to prevent any potential ambiguity between an intensive and a reflexive meaning. Akan does not assign an intensifying function hõ; however, it employs hõ in expressing reciprocity and resorts to reduplication to prevent any potential ambiguity between an intensive and a reflexive meaning. Comparative data from other languages suggests that this coding strategy is widespread. I consider the intensifier-reflexive relationship in English as an exceptional strategy, and propose, contrary to previous findings, that Buli and several other languages genetically related to Buli (e.g., Dagaare, Dagbani, and Kusaal) have no dedicated reflexive pronouns.
References
König, Ekkehard, Peter Siemund & Stephan Töpper. 2013. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/47. (19 November, 2022).
Maslova, Elena & Vladimir P Nedjalkov. 2013. Reciprocal constructions. In Matthew S Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Max Planck Digital Library. https://wals.info/chapter/106. (19 November, 2022).
