Resultatives with a Reflexive Morpheme

In this project, I plan to investigate (and propose a formal analysis based on general principles of natural language) the resultative constructions with a reflexive morpheme, of a type "Karl hostet seg til døren" in three languages (Czech, Norwegian and Northern Sámi). In particular, there are two questions: where does the notion of direction come from (it is certainly not a part of the lexical meaning of the verb "cough") and, second, what is the role of the reflexive morpheme in the constructions. On t he theoretical side, this investigation should be a contribution to the debate between proponents of the Construction Grammarians and generative syntactitians in the Chomskyan tradition. I, standing on the generativist side, believe that if the correct mo rphological pieces are identified and their syntactic role is pinned down (within CASTL nanosyntactic approach), the role of the reflexive morpheme and the directionality of the construction described above will fall out neatly. I am particularly excited about the possibility to spend research time at CASTL Tromsø, the residence of leading experts in a variety of topics relevant to the proposed research. Equally, I would have an opportunity to discuss the data both with the native speakers of Norwegian as well as Northern Sami, an option absolutely unavailable at my home institution.