Anaphors are linguistic deficient entities which need to refer to a previously introduced category (PRAGMATICS 2). A reflexive pronoun (LEXICON 3.7.4) is a type of anaphor, which must have an antecedent in its own clause. This holds in LIS and in many other signed and spoken languages. In the example below, the reflexive pronoun selfrefers to the subject bob.
bob self like
‘Bob likes himself.’
The reflexive pronoun and its antecedent must be in the same clause. In example below, the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun selfis maria, the subject of the verb love within the same (object) clause, not gianni which is the subject of the verb say within the main clause.
giannia say mariab ixb love only self
‘Gianni said that Maria loves only himself.’
Furthermore, a reflexive object can refer to a previous subject (as in the example below), but not the other way around.
ix3 self like
‘He likes himself.’
The opposite pattern is shown by personal pronouns. In LIS, a pronoun in object position cannot take the subject of its own clause as its antecedent (PRAGMATICS 2). In the example below the pronominal object ix3 cannot refer to maria, but it must refer to another person.
mariaa criticise ix3b
‘Maria criticises her/him.’