Universal 1641: transitive > objective > subjective
- Original
- Syntactic functions of reflexive markers fall into an implicational hierarchy:
transitive > objective > subjective function.If a language exhibits objective reflexive verbs it is likely to have both subjective and objective reflexive verbs, and if a language exhibits objective reflexive verbs it is very likely to have subjective reflexive verbs, but not necessarily transitive reflexive verbs.
- Standardized
- IF there are transitive reflexive verbs, THEN there are objective reflexive verbs.
IF there are objective reflexive verbs, THEN there are subjective reflexive verbs. - Keywords
- reflexive
- Domain
- inflection, syntax
- Type
- implicational hierarchy
- Status
- achronic but presumably diachronically motivated
- Quality
- statistical
- Basis
- over 50 Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages
- Source
- Geniusiene 1987: 343
- Counterexamples
Reflexive verb systems comprised only of subjective reflexive verbs may be regarded as the earliest stage of evolution. The objective function is secondary to the subjective and it evolves later. The transitive dative function, as it is attested only in languages with both subjective and objective finctions of the reflexive marker (RM), seems to be secondary to both, but on the other hand, its absence in such languages as Russian, Latvian, and Armenian, with highly developed subjective and objective semantic functions of RM, seems to indicate that it is not an obligatory stage in the evolution of the syntactic functions of RMs (Geniusiene 1987: 343).