Reflexivization strategies in Georgian

The dissertation investigates reflexivization strategies of Georgian (Kartvelian), a language with a split between the nominative and active alignment in both case and agreement marking. The work identifies one simplex and one complex nominal reflexivization strategies, both based on a grammaticalized body-part noun. A precise description of the strategies is offered within the Binding (Chomsky 1981) and Reflexivity Theories (Reinhart and Reuland 1993). Georgian additionally has a verbal reflexivization strategy, the prefix 'i-' which interacts in an interesting way with the nominal strategies. Reflexivity Theory makes it possible to study the behavior of the two nominal strategies with respect to the verbal strategy. Apart from describing the anaphoric system of Georgian the work offers a discussion on the apparent violations of principles of either the Binding Theory or the Reflexivity Theory. One of such violations is a non-anaphoric/pronominal use of the phrase formally identical with the complex nominal reflexivization strategy in Object Camouflage (Harris 1981). The twofold and contrasting behavior of the phrase as an anaphor and as a pronominal is argued to be an illustration of the grammaticalization process that the body-part has undergone. The dissertation observes a potential problem for the Binding and Reflexivity theories such as the subject use of the Georgian complex nominal reflexivization strategy and that of the reciprocal 'ertmanet-'. The subject use of the anaphors is a counter-example also for various other proposals in the generative linguistic literature that try to explain the absence/presence of subject anaphors cross-linguistically. Such explanations have been the Anaphor Agreement principle and its modified version according to which anaphors do not occur in syntactic positions construed with agreement (Rizzi 1990), and if they still appear the agreement is either anaphoric or “default” (Woolford 1999). The dissertation argues Georgian to be a counter-example to the principle. According to another explanation within the Reflexivity Theory, a subject use of the Greek anaphor is due to its form, its being a [+SELF;+R] reflexivization strategy and subject to covert head incorporation, with subsequent possessor raising (Anagnostopoulou and Everaert 1999). It was proposed to extend the analysis of the Greek anaphor to the Georgian complex nominal strategy as well (Everaert 2001, 2003). However, the Georgian reciprocal “ertmanet-“ not being a [+SELF;+R] reflexivization strategy but nevertheless being able to appear in the subject position makes the proposal by (Everaert 2001, 2003) not applicable to Georgian. A recent analysis of complex anaphors also relates their interpretation as a relevant function of the antecedent to their being complex by form (Reuland 2001). This might seem to be relevant for accounting for the Georgian complex nominal reflexivization strategy which in subject position gets interpreted as a function of the postcedent. However, the Georgian reciprocal, unable to be analyzed as a complex anaphor but being able to appear as a subject argument exactly with the same “function of” interpretation makes the application of the solution to Georgian data problematic and leaves the issue of subject anaphors open for further investigation.