Revisiting verbal reflexivity: On the morphosyntax and argument structure of IN derived verbs in Turkish
Synopsis
In Turkish, verbal reflexives are formed with two different suffixes, -Il and -In, as observed in the literature. It has been argued that of these verbs, those derived with the suffix -Il express only figure reflexivity; while reflexives derived with the suffix -In express ground reflexivity (Key, 2021, 2025). We observe that the -In suffix appears in two additional contexts: (i) in building figure reflexivity and (ii) in some unergative verbs that do not express any reflexivity. Based on these observations, we propose that the -In suffix is essentially a realization of a verbal head that does not introduce arguments. These non-argument-introducing verbal heads emerge within the context of a head, which we call Ref and propose to be subject to contextual allosemy.
Keywords: Verbal reflexivity, Voice, Turkish
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