Reflexive Pronouns: A Theoretical and Experimental Synthesis

This book presents a comprehensive picture of reflexive pronouns from both a theoretical and experimental perspective, using the well-researched languages of English, German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. In order to understand the data from varying theoretical perspectives, the book considers selected syntactic and pragmatic analyses based on their current importance in the field. The volume consequently introduces the Emergentist Reflexivity Approach, which is a novel theoretical synthesis incorporating a sentence and pragmatic processor that accounts for reflexive pronoun behaviour in these six languages. Moreover, in support of this model a vast array of experimental literature is considered, including first and second language acquisition, bilingual, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic and clinical studies. It is through both the intuitive and experimental data linguistic theorizing relies upon that brings out the strengths of the modelling adopted here, paving new avenues for future research. In sum, this volume unites a diverse array of the literature that currently sits largely divorced between the theoretical and experimental realms, and when put together a better understanding of reflexive pronouns under the auspices of the Emergentist Reflexivity Approach is forged.

Provides clear information on reflexive pronouns in a wide range of languages Discusses key issues in the theoretical perspectives on anaphora Presents state-of-the-art knowledge on experimental research, and takes on the challenge of choosing the most suited methodology for anaphoric experiments Considers syntactic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives in relation to a diverse array of data

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- Theoretical Goals.- Experimental Goals.- Key Terms.- Key Outcomes.- Summary.- 2. Background on Reflexive Pronouns.- 3. Current Theoretical Approaches to Reflexive Pronouns.- Syntactic Theories.- Semantic Theories.- Pragmatic Theories.- 4. Experimental Perspectives.- Methodological Issues.- First Language Studies.- Child Studies.- Second Language Acquisition Studies.- Clinical Studies.- 5. Data and theory synthesis.- 6. Conclusion.- Future Directions.<p