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

G. it-has done he (SELF) / SE SELF
e. O Jo~,ao fé-lo ele (mesmo)/*si mesmo (Portugu.)
The J. did-it he (SELF) SE SELF
f. Ion a scris el insusi acest proiect (Romanian)
I. has written he SELF this project
g. o jánis to káni o ídjos / * o eaftós tu (Greek)
the J. it-did the HE-SELF/ the self of-his )
h. Jon, ordea, berak /*bere buruak egin du (Basque) 31
J. instead HE-SELF/ his self done has
In all the above examples, the reflexive forms are unacceptable as emphatic I-subjects. 32
The acceptable emphatic I-subjects in 0 are possible in contexts where they are not bound
intensionally equivalent to the emphatic I-subject (although it
is extensionally equivalent in most pragmatic situations): da
solo implies 'with no help', while the emphatic subject does not
necessarily exclude 'help'. It rather stresses that the action
has not been delegated to someone else.
These speakers also report that adding stesso to the
emphatic subject lui is not very natural (at least in their
dialect). See below for discussion on the position of lui and
lui stesso as emphatic elements.
31 Jon berak is actually a possible constituent, but not
necessarily: I put the ordea 'instead' element in between to
clarify the example. Berak, on the other hand, is not an
anaphoric element in modern Basque, but rather a logophoric /
emphatic expression, as is usual with emphatic I-subjects.
32
Hebrew allows neither emphatic anaphors nor emphatic
pronominals as I-subjects. In fact, this language does not allow
pronominals as inverted subjects (thanks to Tali Siloni for the
data and comments). Perhaps the intermediate status of this
language as a NSL (however it should be properly characterized)
is the reason for this situation.
Hungarian does not provide clear examples relevant for the
theory either, perhaps because emphatic I-subjects, as Focus
elements, should occupy the obligatory Focus position in this
language, which is preverbal and, likely, not an I-subject (it
would be the specifier of some (Focus) FC.
I think that a more detailed study would be necessary to
extend the present theory to these languages.
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