A history of English reflexive pronouns person, self, and interpretability - Gelderen, Elly van (John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2000)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-268) and indexes
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS; Editorial page; Title page; LCC page; Table of contents; Preface; List of tables; Notes for the user and list of abbreviations; Introduction; Chapter 1. Old English reflexives; Chapter 2. Reflexives in Middle and later English; Chapter 3. Pro-drop and feature strength; Chapter 4. The loss of verbal agreement and verb-movement; Chapter 5. The loss of inherent case; Chapter 6. Ergativity and the person split; Chapter 7. Conclusion; Appendix; References; Name Index; Subject Index; The Series LINGUISTIK AKTUELL/LINGUISTICS TODAY.
This book brings together a number of seemingly distinct phenomena in the history of English: the introduction of special reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself), the loss of verbal agreement and pro-drop, and the disappearance of morphological Case. It provides vast numbers of examples from Old and Middle English texts showing a person split between first, second, and third person pronouns. Extending an analysis by Reinhart & Reuland, the author argues that the 'strength' of certain pronominal features (Case, person, number) differs cross-linguistically and that parametric variation accounts for the