Chapter 3. Free self-forms in discourse-pragmatic functions

This paper contributes to the study of picture NPs, as one of various contexts that encourage the use of unbound self -forms. The paper emphasises the need for a clear terminological distinction between different self -forms, of which standard reflexives are only one type. Based on findings from the British National Corpus , the Northern Ireland Corpus of Transcribed Speech , and the Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects , an extended definition of picture NPs is proposed for cases with and without representational nouns ( That’s (a picture of) myself ) which can be attributed to the conversational context. A Pronoun Usage Questionnaire is used to test constraints and explanations proposed in previous studies on self -forms in picture NPs (in particular Cantrall 1974 and Kuno 1987), and to assess their general acceptability among English native speakers. The results presented provide strong evidence against a ‘one form-one meaning’ approach, showing that pronoun choice in conversation is frequently influenced by discourse-pragmatic factors, such as viewpoint and contrast.