Reflexives in Czech from a Dependency Perspective

Abstract

Reflexives are the source of ambiguity in many languages, including Czech. In this paper, we address Czech reflexives and their description in the dependency-oriented theory, Functional Generative Description. Our primary focus in this paper lies in the reflexives that form analogous syntactic structures as personal pronouns (e.g., Jan si / jí nevěří. ‘John does not believe in himself / in her.’). In Czech (similarly as in other Slavic languages), these reflexives encode reflexivity or reciprocity, two closely related phenomena. We offer an in-depth analysis of both these phenomena and propose their description in lexicon and in grammar. Further, we clarify principles underlying ambiguity of reflexive and reciprocal constructions.