On the Free Interpretation of Jibun

Pevnick, Gershon

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Year:: 2024
Contributor:: Pevnick, Gershon (creator); Jacobson, Pauline (Advisor); Brown University. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: variable-free semantics; Semantics; Linguistics
Extent:: ii, 46 p.

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Abstract:: The Japanese word jibun is a reflexive with a unique set of properties that violates certain expectations that we might have based on how other reflexives have been described. Reflexives are generally described based on two aspects of their behavior, syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. Jibun is syntactically unrestricted in that it is able to refer not just to a local antecedent, but a long distance one as well. Although this freedom of syntactic distribution has been well described, it creates a difficulty in describing the available semantic interpretations for jibun. Specifically, reflexives are expected to be obligatorily bound in many cases. In this work, I show that the free interpretation of jibun is in fact available (based on native speaker intuition) in the presence of a context which strongly supports this interpretation. The theoretical considerations that were important for constructing the contexts as well as how to effectively test for the availability of the free interpretation are also discussed. The goal of this research was to establish the availability of the free interpretation of jibun as a baseline for investigating other aspects of jibun’s behavior. Some of these other aspects are discussed in light of the current results alongside potential cross-linguistic implications of the current results and research methodology.
Notes:: Thesis (Sc. M.)--Brown University, 2024

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Citation

Pevnick, Gershon, "On the Free Interpretation of Jibun" (2024). Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:vdhyygwh/

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Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences department.
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