THE EFFECT OF MORPHOLOGY ON LONG-DISTANCE REFLEXIVES

Although both Chinese and European languages exhibit long distance reflexives, the properties of long distance reflexives appear to be different in Chinese from those in European languages. In this paper, we focus on two differences. First, in Chinese, long distance reflexives exhibit ＂blocking effects＂ while there is no blocking effect in European languages. Second, in European languages but not in Chinese reflexives can only be bound across certain clause types. We suggest that long distance reflexives involved successive cyclic head movement in all languages and that what distinguishes the distribution of reflexives in Chinese from that in European languages is the effect of rich or impoverished morphology.