Journal of Historical Syntax

Noa Bassel. The history of English x-self has informed both diachronic and synchronic accounts of anaphors by showing that its source is the focused adjective known as intensifier (as in the queen herself came). I present two corpora surveys that show a reversed historical trajectory for the Semitic anaphor nafs-x. The findings suggest a refined explanation to the cross-linguistic homophony between anaphors and intensifiers and to the role of complex anaphors in grammar.