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

(46) * En Joan ho ha fet si mateix
The J. it-has done SE SELF
'Joan did it himself'
As we have seen, only a pronominal (ell (mateix)) can be used in this construction.
Is the contrast 0/0 really significant? According to 0, this contrast should generalize to a
contrast between NSLs/non-NSLs. The prediction is that, for this type of constructions, non-
NSLs will have emphatic anaphors, while NSLs will not: instead, they have emphatic
pronominals. We will see directly that this prediction is borne out in a wide variety of languages,
although some qualifications will be required. Concerning NSLs, all of the following use
emphatic pronominals instead of anaphors: 28
(47) Peter had this work done by a lawyer, but...
a. en Joan l'ha fet ell (mateix)/ * si mateix (Catalan)
the J. it-has done he (SELF) / SE SELF
b. Joan l'a fait el (mateis)/*se mateis (Occit.) 29
J. it-has done he (SELF) / SE SELF
c. Juan lo ha hecho él (mismo)/ * si mismo (Spanish)
J. it-has done he (SELF)/ SE SELF
d. Gianni l'ha fatto lui (stesso)/ * se stesso (Ital.) 30
28 Thanks to Patrick Sauzet (Occitan), Luigi Giuliani
(Italian), Joana Louro (Portuguese), Virginia Motapayane
(Romanian), Josep Quer (Greek) and Itziar Laka (Basque) for the
data and comments.
29 In modern colloquial Occitan mateis has been replaced in
most dialects by the French borrowing même. This is a merely
lexical fact.
30 Some speakers reported to me that in Italian this
construction with emphatic lui (stesso) is much more emphatic
than in Catalan, and that the alternative use of da solo 'by
himself' is more natural. In fact da solo is not, I think,
1