The distribution of SE-reflexives in Dutch

Abstract

Handling clause-bound SE-reflexives such as Dutch zich transcends the scope of Chomsky’s (1981) binding theory and has motivated various revisions of it. This article argues that canonical binding theory is essentially correct because SE-reflexives are not bound but inalienably possessed by their antecedent. Rooryck & Vanden Wyngaerd (2011) provides a syntactic implementation of this idea, which has mainly been elaborated for SE-reflexives in reflexive-verb constructions. This article shows that it can also account for the distribution of Dutch SE-reflexives in a wider range of constructions by considering it in conjunction with the analysis of inalienable possession in Broekhuis & Cornips (1997).

Keywords

• binding theory
• simplex reflexive
• inalienable possession
• inherent reflexivity
• small clauses
• AcI constructions