Abstract
The paper deals with syntactic and semantic restrictions on the reflexive decausativization of verbs involving instrument in their meaning. More concretely, the paper aims to answer two related questions: First, why instrument cannot be expressed in the potential instrumental position of reflexive decausatives.
Second, why the verbs that involve instrument in their meaning cannot undergo reflexive decausativisation. The puzzle is resolved on the basis of the decompostion of semantic roles into elementary semantic features (according to Reinhart, 2002), which allows to describe properly the meaning of verbs and their participants.
The paper reaches the conclusion that the semantic role of instrument implies the presence of the causative feature which is however completely suppresed in decausative structures. Nevertheless, it is shown that reflexivization of verbs involving instrument is possible, though with different interpretation - that of the reflexive verbal form or mediopassive.
Finally, it is pointed out how this linguistic analysis may contribute to teaching Czech as a foreign language.