Grammaticalization of nouns meaning “head” into reflexive markers: A cross-linguistic study

Abstract

Studies on the grammaticalization of body-part nouns into reflexives have often formulated cross-linguistic generalizations, but have mostly failed to provide detailed analyses of similar developments attested in unrelated languages. As a consequence, valuable insights have sometimes been overlooked. The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it identifies a higher number of languages using “head”-reflexives than previous accounts. On the other hand, its purpose is to analyze the diachronic evolution of nouns denoting “head” into reflexive markers in three unrelated language groups (Basque, Berber and Kartvelian) and to show how “head”-reflexives synchronically and diachronically interact with secondary reflexivization strategies, such as detransitivization. The results suggest that the areal factor has a considerable impact on the emergence of “head”-reflexives; they also show that none of the languages analyzed reflects all grammaticalization stages put forward in the literature. Accordingly, it is argued that the grammaticalization stages are optional, and that the correlation between formal and semantic change is not obligatory.