Jaume Solà i Pujols - Departament de Filologia Catalana ...

(63) Yusuf mà huwa nafsuhu
J. not he he-self
'J. is not himself'
Cf.:
Yusuf mà huwa tawil
J. not he tall
'J. is not tall'
Hebrew, which we saw was not very telling w.r.t. the anaphoric/pronominal status of I-
subjects (it apparently allows neither option), provides very interesting data in this connection.
As is well-known, Hebrew is a mixed language w.r.t. null subjects: it allows them only with
certain verbal forms (past tense 1st/2nd person) and contexts (embedded sentences having a
subject bound by the superordinate subject). Even if it is not clear what this pattern amounts to
from a theoretical point of view, one possible prediction could be that in the kind of
constructions we are considering are sensitive to the (non) null-subject context. This prediction is
roughly borne out: in null-subject contexts, a pronominal is preferred, as shown by the contrast in
0, whereas in non-null-subject contexts an anaphor is preferred, as shown in 0: 76
76 Thanks to Ur Shlonsky, who first suggested the possibility
of having such a contrast, Tali Siloni, Hagit Borer and Erez
Bronstein. Not all of them agree on the judgements, but their
disagreements consist in simply not seeing some of the contrasts
rather than having opposite values. Only Tali Siloni points out
that for past-3rd person (which is a non-null-subject context)
she prefers a pronominal -(i)- or even better a pronominal-SELF
expression -(ii)-:
(i) Hu lo haya hu/??acmo ba-mesiba
He not was he himself in-the-party
(ii) Hu lo haya hu-acmo ba-mesiba
He not was he-SELF in-the-party
1