REMARKS ON THE REFLEXIVE IN CHINESE

This paper describes several aspects of the distribution of the reflexive in Mandarin Chinese. We consider first the use of the bare-reflexive (ziji) and the compound pronoun + reflexive (ta ziji, ni ziji, etc.) as bound anaphors (in the sense of Chomsky 1981) and the implications of their binding properties for the government and binding theory of Chomsky (1981). Next, we analyze the emphatic use of ziji as a contrastive and certain ambiguities that arise between emphatic and anaphoric uses. Finally, we consider the use of ziji as an arbitrary (generic) pronoun meaning ʻone ʼ and discuss the analytic and theoretical consequences of this use. © 1990, Walter de Gruyter