"Pero se escondíamos como las ratas": syncretism in the reflexive paradigm in Spanish and Catalan

Abstract

In this paper I provide a description of the reflexive syncretism found in some Spanish and Catalan neighbouring varieties. In these varieties, the 3rd person reflexive pronoun se can also appear with 1st person plural and 2nd person plural verbs. With dialectal data from the COSER, the ALPI and from works of other scholars I analyse the distribution of the syncretism in order to establish what person (the 1st plural or the 2nd plural) it affected first. I also analyse this syncretism in other Romance languages, in order to see if the person hierarchies previously proposed in the literature are confirmed by these varieties.

Keywords

• reflexive pronouns
• syncretism
• Spanish
• Catalan
• typological hierarchies