Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:39:15 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: Don Nelson puts behind Bob, Can't buy it. Clause-mates ought to trigger reflexives. For example, in 'John moved the skunk away from himself,' the skunk is the target of the moving (not John), and 'him' would not be coreferential. I still find it odd and still think that the metaphoric sense is related to the variation. Compare John put the skunk behind himself with John put the argument behind him. I can't reverse the pronouns (and still keep the coreferential). Dennis >On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >> How about the other funny business in this sentence? Since the 'him' (in 1 >> above, a completely grammatical sentence) is a clause-mate to 'Nelson,' why >> isn't it reflexive? *Nelson put this chapter behind himself. Could this odd >> fact have anything to do with the fact that the locative is predicted by >> 'put' but here has an obligatory temporal metaphoric reading? > >Dennis, > >It's not reflexive because the action is not directed toward Nelson, >himself. Rather the action is directed and focused upon the "chapter". >So, in that regard, the sentence seems to be correct. Still, it does >read a little weird, but I wonder if I see as such due to Beth's initial >post. Did she taint my perception of what may simply be a strange >sounding sentence? > >Jus' wondrin' > >Bob Haas >University of North Carolina at Greensboro >rahaas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu