On the productivity of reflexive and reciprocal se in Serbian

This paper deals with the productivity of the Serbian reflexive and reciprocal clitic se ‘x-self/each other’ and with how it relates to the alternative reflexive and reciprocal markers used by Serbian, the reflexive pronoun sebe and the reciprocal pronoun jedan drugog. The theoretical background assumed in the paper presupposes that se-type markers are crosslinguistically employed with verbs frequently used in reflexive/reciprocal form, while the sebe-type is normally employed with verbs rarely used as reflexive/reciprocal. The main question thus is whether in Serbian the division of labor between these two types of markers is grammaticalized, limiting se to a closed class of frequently reflexivized/reciprocated verbs (similarly to the case of the English unmarked forms), or not grammaticalized, allowing se with other verbs too. Since both views are represented in the theoretical literature, the issue was addressed in an extensive empirical study, involving an examination of a written corpus of Serbian and a Picture Judgment Task administered to a group of native speakers. The results obtained by both methods indicate that se does tend to occur prevalently with verbs often used as reflexive/reciprocal, but this tendency appears to be a matter of preference rather than a choice imposed by a grammaticalized pattern.