Eckhard Bick - VISL

(1) Table: functions of pronominal “se”
usage reflexive passive impersonal
(indeterminate)
reciprocal all
position pre post pre post pre post pre post pre post
VFIN 73 58 20 8 35 25 2 1 130 92
INF 27 25 1 5 1 - 2 - 31 30
GER 1 3 - - - - 1 - 2 3
all 101 86 21 13 36 25 5 1 163
(57%)
125
187 (65%) 34 (12%) 61 (21%) 6 (2%) 288 (100%)
The text in question being Brazilian, it comes as no surprise that pre-posed pronouns
("pre") are more frequent than enclitic ones ("post"), accounting for 57%. Interestingly,
non-finite forms are more conservative in this respect than finite ones, with fronting
percentages of 50% and 59%, respectively.
And non-finite forms are different in yet another aspect: They (almost) never
occur with impersonal "se", and in passive "se" constructions they avoid pronoun
fronting (almost) altogether. A rare but typical context, where indeterminate "se" does
occur before non-finite verb forms, are clausal arguments of prepositions:
(7a) a capacidade de @N< se @SUBJ> tirar @#ICL-P< proveito dela
('the capacity to take advantage of her')
(7b) além=de @ADVL> se @SUBJ> misturar @#ICL-P< folhos, ...
('apart from mixing leaves')
(7c) o plano de @N< se @SUBJ> montar @#ICL-P< uma rede de lavenderias
('the plan to mount a network of washing saloons')
(7d) A @ADVL> se @SUBJ> julgar @#ICL-P< pela reação que despertou, ...
('to judge by the reaction he provoked')
Statistical findings like the above can be useful on the heuristic level of
disambiguation, after all other lexical and contextual information has been exhausted.
So far the following disambiguation principles have been discussed for the pronoun
"se":
• lexically marked reflexive valency favours the prototypical @ACC reading
• lack of reflexive valency suggests @SUBJ or @ACC-PASS readings, the latter only
for transitive valency
• an explicit subject-NP candidate to the left disallows se-@SUBJ
• a plural verb form prohibits se-@SUBJ
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