Timeline for Why are reflexives prohibited in partitive constructions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 8, 2023 at 15:19 | comment | added | Buffoon | @ Janus Bahs Jacquet Thanks for the helpful message! I now understand the latter meaning you pointed out! | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 10:10 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Buffoon Consider that ‘all’ can mean two different things: it can refer to every member of a countable group (all the cars, all of them); or it can refer to the entirety of a non-countable entity (all the water, all of the time), similar to whole. When used with a reflexive, it automatically takes on the latter meaning, not the former, so “The men washed all of themselves” is similar to “I washed all of myself” – that is, not just the feet or the face, but the entire body, from head to toe. | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 2:44 | comment | added | Buffoon | Thanks! @Janus Bahs Jacquet I did not detect the difference of the meaning. | |
| Feb 7, 2023 at 17:27 | comment | added | Lambie | Simple: Julie and Bob are talking about themselves. Versus Julie and Bob are talking about the two of them. two different meanings. The same goes for: The men, all of them, stared into their cups. versus The men themselves stared into their cups. | |
| Feb 7, 2023 at 15:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackLinguist/status/1622973463219814404 | ||
| Feb 7, 2023 at 11:31 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | I don’t think they’re ungrammatical in partitives as such – just in this particular type of partitive. ‘All of themselves’ isn’t ungrammatical, but it is semantically different, meaning not ‘all member of the group <them>’ but rather ‘the full extent of each member of the group <them>’. The men washed all of themselves is perfectly valid, meaning not ‘all the men washed themselves’ but ‘each of the men washed himself all over’. | |
| Feb 7, 2023 at 9:50 | history | edited | Sir Cornflakes |
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| Feb 7, 2023 at 3:54 | history | asked | Buffoon | CC BY-SA 4.0 |