End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Nov 1995 to 18 Nov 1995 ************************************************ There are 5 messages totalling 214 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Don Nelson puts behind (4) 2. Fixinto ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 02:07:12 -0500 From: Bob Haas Subject: Re: Don Nelson puts behind Dennis, Perhaps clause-mates ought to trigger reflexives, but that's not how they work. According to _The New Lexicon Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary_ (1992) the definition of reflexive reads: "denoting an action by the subject upon itself, e.g. of a verb whose subject and direct object are the same ('dressed' in 'he dressed himself'), or of a pronoun which is the object of such a verb ('himself' in 'he dressed himself') . . . (837). Therefore, your example doesn't quite seem to apply. In "John put the skunk behind himself" himself is not called for. The more correct pronoun, him, is the object of the preposition. It would seem to more dative that accusitive, but besides worrying about the labels, it seems to me that most readers would understand that "him" refers to John and not the skunk. Why would he move the skunk behind itself? Finally, John must be careful because if the skunk in question has not been descented, John will end up washing himself in tomato juice. Not that that particular remedy is all that effective. While your ideas about clause-mates are interesting, I'm not quite ready to buy them. I would enjoy a response, though. Bob Haas University of North Carolina at Greensboro rahaas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu On Sat, 18 Nov 1995, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > 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. > Compare > John put the skunk behind himself > > with > > John put the argument behind him.