Title: A Study of Chinese Long-Distance Reflexives Based on Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics and Typological Studies

Abstract: The long-distance reflexives in Chinese pose challenges to traditional GT and pragmatic explanation in the light of explanatory adequacy. Under the guidance of ECL, the typological linguistic analysis of 16 Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages given by the present study generalizes the semantic and syntactic features of reflexives. From the ECL perspective, the long-distance bound reflexives are the results of interactions among the economy and principles of language and the clarity of cognition. The barrier effect of the long-distance bound simple reflexive ziji can be best explained by cognitive person prominence and optimization principle of interations between language and cognition. The possessive reflexive is essentially long-distance bound reflexive and the concerning phenomenon can be best explained by the headedness principle and cognitive animacy effects. The complex reflexive taziji tends to be locally bound for the cognitive purpose of disambiguation, and its essence is exclusive anaphora. This reflects the decisive role of cognition advocated by ECL.

Keywords: long-distance reflexives, Embodied Cognitive Linguistics, typological study, barrier effect

Author: Zhiyi Zhang, Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China; Shuxian Zhang, School of Foreign Languages, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2021.04.013