Profile of reflexives in hill mari

Abstract

The paper provides a detailed examination of reflexive strategies in the Kuznetsovo dialect of Hill Mari (Mari, Uralic) filling in an existing gap in the description of anaphoric elements in Uralic languages. Firstly, I focus on simple lexical reflexives derived from the stem (ë)škë-. Having examined their morphosyntactic and binding properties, I adopt several typological classifications and approach the Hill Mari data from a cross-linguistic perspective comparing them to anaphors in other Uralic languages. Secondly, I consider other reflexive strategies employed in Uralic languages, such as complex (reduplicative) reflexive pronouns and reflexive detransitivization of a predicate, and I demonstrate that these scenarios are unavailable in the variety of Hill Mari under discussion.