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5.2.1.5.Reflexive and reciprocal personal pronouns

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This section discusses the reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, which have the characteristic property that they must be bound by (= be coreferential with) an antecedent noun phrase in the same clause. We will first discuss the paradigm of the reflexive pronouns, which will be followed by a discussion of the reciprocal elkaar'each other'. The section will be concluded with a discussion of the so-called binding properties of these pronouns.

I. The reflexive pronouns
II. The reciprocal pronoun elkaar'each other'
III. Binding

[+] I. The reflexive pronouns

The form of the reflexive pronouns is determined by their antecedent: they vary according to the person and number features involved, just like the referential personal pronouns. They differ from the referential pronouns, however, in that they are not marked for gender: the third person reflexive pronoun zich(zelf) is not sensitive to the gender of the head noun of its antecedent. The Dutch reflexive pronouns can further be divided into two morphologically distinct groups: the first group consists of monomorphemic forms, whereas the second group consists of bimorphemic forms that result from the addition of the bound morpheme –zelf to the monomorphemic forms. We will refer to these two groups as the simplex and complex reflexives, respectively. The full paradigm is given in Table 8.

Table 8: Reflexive personal pronouns

		singular		plural
		simplex	complex	simplex	complex
first person		me	mezelf	ons	onszelf
second person	regular	je	jezelf	je	jezelf
	polite	u/zich	uzelf/zichzelf	u/zich	uzelf/zichzelf
third person		zich	zichzelf	zich	zichzelf

The simplex reflexive pronouns of the first and second person are homophonous to the reduced object forms of the corresponding referential pronouns, if available. The second person plural reflexive pronoun je differs from the referential one in that the latter must appear as the phonologically heavy form jullie. The polite reflexive form can be either u or zich; that the latter is possible may be related to the fact that the referential pronoun u behaves syntactically like a third person pronoun in that it triggers third person singular agreement on the finite verb (cf. Section 5.2.1.1, sub I); the fact that the referential pronoun u can be the antecedent of the reflexive zich(zelf) shows that it also behaves like a third person singular pronoun in this respect. Example (374) shows that the two forms u and zich are often interchangeable. However, use of the reflexive form u is infelicitous if the subject pronoun and the reflexive pronoun are adjacent, as in (374b&c). In imperative constructions such as (374d), on the other hand, zich is excluded. Note that this cannot fully be attributed to the absence of the subject pronoun given that the imperative is intrinsically second person; since zich is only used in the polite form, this should in principle suffice to indicate that the polite form is intended.

374

a.	U	heeft	u/zich	vergist.
	you	have	refl	mistaken
	'Youʼre mistaken.'

b.		Ik	denk	dat	u	zich/??u	vergist	heeft.
		I	think	that	you	refl	mistaken	has

c.		Waarschijnlijk	heeft	u	zich/??u	vergist.
		probably	have	you	refl	mistaken

d.		Vergis	u/*zich	niet!
		mistake	refl	not

If the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun is plural, two interpretations are often possible. Example (375), for example, can either refer to a situation in which the boys present themselves as a group (e.g., we are The Tramps), or to a situation in which each of the boys introduces himself. These interpretations depend on the interpretation of the plural subject, which may have either a collective or a distributive interpretation; cf. Section 5.1.1.4.

375

De jongens	stelden	zichzelf	voor.
the boys	introduced	themselves	prt.
'The boys introduced themselves.'

The reflexive counterpart of the generic personal pronoun men is the third person form zich(zelf). The reflexive forms used with the generic personal pronouns je and ze are, respectively, je(zelf) and zich(zelf). Some examples are given in (376); see Section 5.2.1.1, sub I, for a discussion of these generic pronouns.

376

		Als	je/men	gezond	wil	blijven, ...
		if	you/one	healthy	want	stay …

a.		... dan	moet	men	zich	goed	verzorgen.
		... then	must	one	refl	well	look.after

b.	... dan	moet	je	je	goed	verzorgen.
	... then	should	you	refl	well	look.after
	'If one wants to keep healthy, one has to look after oneself.'

Occasionally, the form ’mzelf is used as a reflexive pronoun within noun phrases, as in (377); the restrictions on its use will not be discussed here, but in Section 2.2.5.2.

377

a.	*	Ik	bekeek	een foto	van	zichzelf/’mzelf.
		I	looked.at	a picture	of	himself

b.		Jani	bekeek	een foto	van	zichzelfi/*’mzelfi.
		Jan	looked.at	a picture	of	himself

[+] II. The reciprocal pronoun elkaar'each other'

Dutch has only one reciprocal pronoun, which is used for all persons and genders. The form of this pronoun is elkaar (in some varieties of Dutch, the form mekaar is used). Generally, it is used with a syntactically plural antecedent, that is, an antecedent that triggers plural agreement on the verb. This is illustrated in (378).

378

a.		Jij en ik	beminnen	elkaar.
		you and I	love	each.other

b.		Jan en Marie	sloegen	elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	hit	each.other

There are, however, exceptions to the general rule that the antecedent must be syntactically plural. The examples in (379), for instance, show that the generic indefinite/generic pronouns men and je can act as the antecedent of a reciprocal pronoun, despite the fact that they are syntactically singular.

379

a.	Men	moet	elkaar	helpen.
	one	must	each.other	help
	'People should help each other.'

b.	Je	moet	elkaar	vertrouwen.
	you	must	each.other	trust
	'People should trust each other.'

Example (380a) further shows that collective nouns like stel'couple' can sometimes also be used as the antecedent for elkaar. This is, however, not a general property of the collective nouns, as will be clear from the markedness of (380b).

380

a.		Het stel	kuste	elkaar.
		the couple	kissed	each.other

b.	*	De menigte	kuste	elkaar.
		the crowd	kissed	each.other

Other potential cases involving a singular antecedent of elkaar are given in (381). It is not so clear, however, whether the subject really acts as an antecedent of the reciprocal given that expressions like uit elkaar gaan'to disperse/to divorce' and in elkaar vallen/zakken'to collapse' have an idiomatic flavor. One potential argument for assuming that we are dealing with idioms is that the notion of “reciprocity” is absent in the meaning of these examples. The discussion below will show, however, that this may also be the case in non-idiomatic examples.

381

a.	De menigte/het stel	ging	uit elkaar.
	the crowd/the couple	went	out each.other
	'The crowd dispersed/the couple divorced.'

b.	Het kaartenhuis	viel	in elkaar.
	the house.of.carts	fell	in each.other
	'The house of cards collapsed.'

c.	De man	zakte	in elkaar.
	the man	sank	in each.other
	'The man collapsed.'

That the notion of “reciprocity” is an important ingredient of the meaning of the pronoun elkaar is clear from the following experiment. If we invent a new verb, say knurven'to knurf', the first interpretation that will come to mind for a sentence like Jan en Marie knurven elkaar'Jan and Marie are knurving each other' is that it implies that both “Jan is knurving Marie” and “Marie is knurving Jan” are true; similarly a sentence like De jongens knurven elkaar'The boys are knurving each other' will be taken to imply that each of the boys is knurving the others.
Nevertheless it seems that the notion of “reciprocity” may be absent if we are dealing with asymmetric predicates. Examples of such asymmetric predicates can be found in clauses containing locational or temporal phrases like to sit in front of: if Jan is sitting in front of Marie, it immediately follows that Marie does not sit in front of Jan. The examples in (382) show that elkaar can nevertheless be used with such predicates.

382

a.		Jan en Marie	zitten	achter	elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	sit	behind	each.other

b.	De jongens	gingen	na	elkaar	weg.
	the boys	went	after	each.other	away
	'The boys left one after the other.'

c.	Ik	stapel	de dozen	op elkaar.
	I	pile	the boxes	on each.other
	'Iʼm piling the boxes, one on top of the other.'

The examples in (383) show that constructions like these do not always yield an acceptable result. Possibly, the difference in acceptability between (382) and (383) is due to the fact that in (383) the intended relation can simply be expressed by means of the symmetric preposition naast'next-to', whereas Dutch lacks symmetric prepositions that could express the intended relations in (382). To our knowledge, differences like these have never been systematically investigated.

383

a.	*	Jan en Marie	zitten	links	van	elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	sit	to.the.left	of	each.other
		'Jan and Marie are sitting to the left of each other.'

b.	??	Ik	leg	de dozen	rechts	van	elkaar.
		I	put	the boxes	to.the.right	of	each.other
		'I put the boxes to the right of each other.'

[+] III. Binding

A satisfactory discussion of reflexive, reciprocal, and referential personal pronouns implies that some attention must be paid to the syntactic constraints on their interpretation: it is not the case that they can be coreferential with just any noun phrase in the sentence. These syntactic restrictions on what has become known as binding have been in the center of much generative research of the last forty years, and it seems impossible to do full justice to this research within the confines of this study on nouns and their projections. Nevertheless, although we plan to discuss this topic more extensively elsewhere, we still want to highlight some of the results of this research here; see Broekhuis (1994) for a preliminary version of the more exhaustive discussion of this issue.

[+] A. The classical version of the Binding Theory

Most of the research on binding is based on the empirical observation that English referential and reflexive personal pronouns are in complementary distribution. The same thing holds for the Dutch referential and complex reflexive pronouns. This is illustrated in the primeless examples in (384), in which coreferentiality is indicated by italics. The primed examples serve the purpose of showing that referential phrases normally cannot be used if a referential or reflexive pronoun is possible; these examples are excluded on the intended reading, according to which Jan and de jongen refer to the same individual.

384

a.	Ik	denk	dat	Jan	zichzelf/*hem	bewondert.
	I	think	that	Jan	himself/*him	admires
	'I think that Jan admires himself.'

a'.	*	Ik	denk	dat	Jan	de jongen	bewondert.
		I	think	that	Jan	the boy	admires

b.	Jan denkt	dat	ik	hem/*zichzelf	bewonder.
	Jan thinks	that	I	him/himself	admire
	'Jan thinks that I admire him.'

b'.	*	Jan denkt	dat	ik	de jongen	bewonder.
		Jan thinks	that	I	the boy	admire

Data like (384) were accounted for by means of Binding Theory, which found its classical formulation in the so-called binding conditions proposed in Chomsky (1981). Although alternative proposals have been formulated since then, we will take the somewhat simplified formulation of these conditions in (385) as point of departure for our discussion.

385

Reflexive and reciprocal personal pronouns are bound in their local domain.

Referential personal pronouns are free (= not bound) in their local domain.

Referential noun phrases like Jan or de jongen'the boy' are free.

Let us start by clarifying some of the terms used in these conditions. A noun phrase is said to be bound if it is coreferential with a c-commanding antecedent. The term c-command refers to an asymmetric syntactic relation between the constituents in a sentence. Although the relation is generally defined in structural terms, it also seems possible to express it by means of the hierarchy in (386), in which A > B indicates that A c-commands B and everything that is embedded in B.

386

subject > direct object > indirect object-PP > PP-complement > adjunct

We will apply the terms binding and c-command to the examples in (384). We can say that the reflexive pronoun zichzelf in (384a) is bound by the noun phrase Jan given that the latter is a subject and the former a direct object. We can also say that the referential pronoun hem in (384b) is bound by matrix subject Jan given that the latter c-commands the direct object sentence that contains the pronoun (recall that A > B indicates that A c-commands B and everything that is embedded in B).
Now consider again the three binding conditions in (385), which are normally referred to as binding conditions A, B and C. The fact that example (384b') is ungrammatical on the intended reading shows that c-command does not suffice to license binding: binding condition C expresses this by saying that a referential expression cannot be bound at all, which, of course, correctly excludes (384b'). Binding conditions A and B further express that noun phrases that can in principle be bound may differ with respect to the syntactic domain in which this is possible. If we assume for the moment that the relevant domain is the minimal clause in which we find the bound element, the data in (384a&b) will follow: in (384a) the antecedent Jan is within the local domain of the pronoun, and binding conditions A and B predict that a reflexive pronoun can, but a referential pronoun cannot be bound by Jan; in (384b) the antecedent Jan is not within the local domain of the pronoun, and binding conditions A and B therefore predict that a referential pronoun can, but a reflexive pronoun cannot be bound by Jan. This derives the complementary distribution of the referential and reflexive personal pronouns illustrated in (384a&b).
The c-command hierarchy in (386) in tandem with binding condition A predicts that a subject can be the antecedent of any reflexive/reciprocal pronoun functioning as an (in)direct object, a PP-complement or an adjunct in the same clause. The examples in (387) show that this is indeed the case. The hierarchy (386) in tandem with binding condition B also predicts that the referential pronoun ze'them' cannot substitute for the reflexive/reciprocal under the intended reading; this is also true but will go unillustrated here.

387

a.		Jan en Marie	bekeken	zichzelf/elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	looked.at	themselves/each.other

b.		Jan en Marie	gaven	zichzelf/elkaar	graag	cadeautjes.
		Jan and Marie	gave	themselves/each.other	gladly	presents

b'.		Jan en Marie	gaven	een cadeautje	aan zichzelf/elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	gave	a present	to themselves/each.other

c.	Jan en Marie	zorgen	voor zichzelf/elkaar.
	Jan and Marie	take.care	for themselves/each.other
	'Jan and Marie look after themselves/each other.'

d.		Jan en Marie	spraken	namens	zichzelf/elkaar.
		Jan and Marie	spoke	on.behalf.of	themselves/each.other

The c-command hierarchy in (386) in tandem with binding condition A predicts that a direct object can be the antecedent of any reflexive/reciprocal pronoun functioning as an indirect object, a PP-complement or an adjunct in the same clause, but crucially not of the subject. The examples in (388) show that this is indeed the case. The hierarchy in (386) in tandem with binding condition B also correctly predicts that the referential pronoun ze'them' cannot substitute for the reflexive/reciprocal under the intended reading, but this will again go unillustrated here. The diacritic “$” indicates that the example is odd for reasons not related to syntax.

388

a.	*	Zichzelf/Elkaar	zag/zagen	hen.
		themselves/each.other	sawsg/sawpl	them

b.		Ik	stelde	de meisjes	aan $zichzelf/elkaar	voor.
		I	introduced	the girls	to themselves/each.other	prt.

c.	Hij	speelde	de meisjes	tegen $zichzelf/elkaar	uit.
	He	played	the girls	against themselves/each.other	prt.
	'He played the girls off against themselves/each other.'

d.	Ik	waarschuwde	de meisjes	voor zichzelf/elkaar.
	I	warned	the girls	for themselves/each.other
	'I warned the girls about themselves/each other.'

The other predictions that follow from the binding conditions in (385) in tandem with the c-command hierarchy in (386) are also on the right track, but we will not discuss this here; see Broekhuis (1994) for a detailed description.

[+] B. Personal pronouns that are part of the complement of a small clause

Although Chomskyʼs Binding Theory is successful as far as the complex form of the reflexive and the reciprocal is concerned, the simplex reflexive introduces a number of new and intricate problems that cannot straightforwardly be accounted for by means of the three binding conditions in (385). The simplex reflexive is typically used in inherent reflexive constructions such as (389), but can also be used in certain argument positions; see Everaert (1986) for a good, virtually exhaustive, overview of the distribution of the simplex reflexives.

389

a.	Jan vergist	zich/*Marie
	Jan mistakes	refl/Marie
	'Jan is mistaken.'

b.	Jan schaamt	zich/*Marie
	Jan shames	refl/Marie
	'Jan is ashamed.'

That the binding conditions in (385) must be complicated in order to account for the binding behavior of the simplex reflexive zich will be immediately clear from the fact that it cannot be bound by a co-argument, whereas this is typically the case with complex reflexives and reciprocals: in this respect, the simplex reflexive behaves like the referential pronoun hem.

390

a.		Marie bekeek	zichzelf/zich/haar.
		Marie looked.at	herself/refl/her

b.		Jan gaf	zichzelf/zich/hem	graag	cadeautjes.
		Jan gave	himself/refl/him	gladly	presents

c.		Jan gaf	een cadeautje	aan zichzelf/zich/hem.
		Jan gave	a present	to himself/refl/hem

The examples in (391) show that the simplex reflexive zich also behaves differently from the complex reflexives and reciprocals in examples containing a predicative locational PP: in (391a) the reciprocal must be bound by the logical subject of the predicate, de honden'the dogs', whereas the simplex reflexive cannot be. Example (391b) shows that the latter must instead be bound by the subject of the clause. Again, the simplex reflexive behaves like the referential pronouns: the weak pronoun ’m can also be bound by the subject of the clause in this construction.

391

a.	Jan houdt [SC	de honden	bij	elkaar/zich/ze]
	Jan keeps	the dogs	with	each.other/refl/them
	'Jan keeps the dogs together.'

b.	Jan houdt [SC	de honden	bij	zich/’m/*zichzelf].
	Jan keeps	the dogs	with	refl/him/himself
	'Jan keeps the dogs with him.'

The examples in (391) show that although the simplex reflexive and weak referential pronoun cannot be bound by their co-argument de honden, they can be bound by the noun phrase Jan within their minimal clause. From this we conclude that our earlier assumption that the local domain is the minimal clause containing the pronoun is wrong: in (391) it is instead constituted by the phrase marked as small clause (SC), which contains both the locational predicate and its subject. A second conclusion that can be drawn from (391) is that the simplex reflexive zich behaves like the referential pronouns in not being able to be bound with its local domain. Nevertheless the simplex reflexive does pattern with the reflexives and reciprocals in that it must have an antecedent within its minimal clause; the referential pronoun, on the other hand, may remain free in its minimal clause and refer to some contextually determined antecedent, as in (392c), or refer to some antecedent in some higher matrix clause, as in (392c').

392

a.		De hond	legde [SC	de botten	naast	elkaar/zich/ze].
		the dog	put	the bones	next.to	each.other/refl/them

b.		De hond	legde [SC	het bot	naast	zich/’m/*zichzelf].
		the dogs	put	the bone	next.to	refl/him/himself

c.		Ik	legde [PP	het bot	naast	’m/zich/zichzelf].
		I	put	the bone	next.to	him/refl/each.other

c'.	De hond	zag [clause	dat ik [SC	het bot	naast	’m/zich/zichzelf]	legde].
	the dog	saw	that I	the bone	next.to	him/refl/each.other	put
	'The dog saw that I put the bone next to it.'

The (c)-examples in (392) are crucial for our present purpose. Example (392a) simply shows again that whereas a reciprocal can be bound by the subject of a predicative PP, the simplex reflexive and referential pronoun cannot. Example (392b) shows that whereas a reflexive cannot be bound by the subject of the embedded clause, the simplex reflexive and referential pronouns can, although it might be useful to point out that zichzelf is only blocked if it has a regular accent; if it has contrastive accent on zelf, we are dealing with simplex reflexive zich strengthened by the contrastive element zelf'himself/herself/themselves', which we also find with other noun phrases; cf. Jan heeft met Marie zelf gesproken'Jan has spoken to Marie herself'; cf. Section 5.2.3.2, sub V. The (c)-examples in (392) show, however, that the simplex reflexive and the referential pronoun differ in that the former must be bound in it minimal clause, whereas the latter can remain free or be bound by some element in a higher clause.
The discussion above leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish a larger set of local domains, as in (393); in this table “bound” indicates that the relevant noun phrase must be bound within the given domain, “free” indicates that it must remain free in the given domain, and “optional” that it may but need not be bound within the given domain. Note that there are two implicational relations involved: if some element must be bound in its domain I, it must also be bound in its domain II and the sentence; if some element must be free in the sentence it must also be free in its domains I and II. The cells the values of which can be predicted from these implicational relations are shaded; in order to see whether the binding conditions are satisfied, it suffices to inspect whether the conditions in the cells without shading are satisfied.

393

	domain I	domain II	sentence
complex reflexive & reciprocal personal pronouns	bound	bound	bound
simplex reflexive personal pronouns	free	bound	bound
referential personal pronouns	free	optional	optional
referential expression	free	free	free

Now, if we provisionally assume that the local domain I of a pronoun is defined as the first constituent containing both the pronoun and a subject, whereas local domain II is defined as the minimal clause of the pronoun, the data in (390) to (392) will follow. In (390), the minimal clause of the pronoun is also the first constituent containing a subject: domain I and II therefore coincide, and, consequently, it is correctly predicted that only the complex reflexive and reciprocal personal pronouns can be bound by the subject of the clause. In (391) domain I of the pronoun is constituted by the predicative PP, whereas domain II is constituted by the full sentence: consequently, we predict that the complex reflexive and reciprocal personal pronouns must find an antecedent within the PP, whereas it is instead the subject of the sentence that acts as the antecedent for the simplex reflexive and referential pronouns. The (c)-examples of (392), in which we find the same local domains as in (391), show that the referential personal pronoun can remain free or be bound by an antecedent external to the minimal clause, but the simplex reflexive personal pronoun cannot.
The claim that local domain I is the first constituent containing both the noun phrase and a subject predicts that we will find facts similar to those shown in (391) and (392) with adjectival and nominal predicates. The examples in (394) show that this prediction is partly false. The primeless examples show that it is indeed correctly predicted that the subject of the small clause can bind the complex but not the simplex reflexive, but the primed examples show that it is incorrectly predicted that the simplex reflexive pronoun can be bound by the subject of the clause. The fact that the referential pronoun can be bound by the subject of the clause is, of course, in line with the predictions.

394

a.	Kees acht [SC	Jan verliefd	op zichzelf/*zich].
	Kees considers	Jan in.love	on himself/refl
	'Kees believes Jan to be in love with himself.'

a'.		Kees acht [SC	Jan verliefd	op hem/*zich].
		Kees considers	Jan in.love	on him/refl

b.	Kees vindt [SC	Jan een probleem	voor zichzelf/*zich].
	Kees considers	Jan a problem	for himself/refl
	'Kees believes Jan to be a problem for himself.'

b'.	*	Kees vindt [SC	Jan een probleem	voor hem/*zich].
		Kees considers	Jan a problem	for him/refl

The fact that the wrong predictions are made for the simplex reflexive pronoun shows that the definition of the two domains is not as simple as we thought earlier. Since we do not want to go into the precise definitions of local domains I and II, we will simply enumerate which constituents may function as such. Since small clause APs/NPs function both as domain I and domain II of the pronoun, we now correctly predict that the simplex reflexive pronoun cannot be bound by the subject of the clause in (394) because the latter is external to its domain II (the small clause); the referential pronoun, on the other hand, can be bound by the subject of the clause because the latter is external to its domain I.

395

	domain I: SC-PP SC-AP SC-NP	domain II: minimal clause SC-AP SC-NP	sentence
complex reflexive & reciprocal personal pronouns	bound	bound	bound
simplex reflexive personal pronouns	free	bound	bound
referential personal pronouns	free	optional	optional
referential expression	free	free	free

The term minimal clause must be made a bit more precise in light of the fact that simplex reflexives that are part of the complement of an AcI-construction can be also be bound by the subject of a matrix clause. Consider the examples in (396). Example (396a) shows that the infinitival clause functions as the local domain I of the pronouns: the subject of this infinitival clause may bind the complex reflexive, but not the simplex reflexive and referential pronoun. The matrix clause clearly functions as local domain II given that the subject of this clause may bind the simplex reflexive and referential pronouns. This may give rise to the idea that the complement of an AcI-construction is actually not a “true” infinitival clause but a small clause with a VP-predicate, that is, a verbal projection without finite or infinitival tense.

396