Syntactic and functional broadening of the reflexive markers in Romance: for a typological approach

The paper investigates the syntactic and functional (i.e., referential) broadening of reflexive pronouns derived from Latin se/sibi in Romance languages from a typological and Romance-oriented perspective. Such a broadening, already attested in Latin, entails a sort of switch in the referential domain, so that the reflexive pronoun loses its original coreferential bond to the Subject of the main clause, and turns into an anaphoric pronoun, as shown by data from different diachronic stages of Western Romance languages and varieties ([Mediaeval] Castilian, [Mediaeval] Gallo-Italic, Occitan, Portuguese, Campidanese Sardinian, and Southern Calabrese). From a morphological perspective, the referential broadening of the outcomes of Latin se is shown to have been triggered by their morphological underspecification: lacking gender, number and case, they overspread as mark of 1st and 2nd person, both sing. and pl. From a referential perspective, it is demonstrated that the Romance outcomes of Latin ✶illu underwent a functional realignment as to the original functions codified by Latin ille. This realignment has brought them closer to the outcomes of Latin se, thus making them available for the expression of anaphoric reference.