Non-canonical middles: a study of personal let-middles in German

This paper provides an in-depth study of the syntax of German let-middles. It will be shown that these middles can be fully derived in the syntax, and no resort to lexical procedures is required. In particular, I argue that let-middles involve a reflexively marked anticausative (sich lassen), embedding a passive VoiceP. Combined with the fact that they are based on processes that the grammar makes available independently (i.e., the formation of anticausatives and passives), the observation that let-middles pattern like canonical middles in terms of the core properties that define the middle construction strongly suggests that the middle is not a grammatical, but a notional category (Condoravdi 1989; Lekakou 2002, 2005). This paper thereby indirectly supports analyses of canonical middles that treat them as parasitic on other constructions such as passives (Lekakou 2005) or anticausatives (e.g., Hale and Keyser 1987; Schafer 2008). The proposed analysis also shows that reflexive pronouns without a c-commanding antecedent do not necessarily lead to ungrammaticality as long as their phi-features are formally valued. Let-middles also provide evidence that a passive syntax does not have to correlate with passive morphology. It will be argued that the existence of such morphologically unmarked passives is restricted to contexts in which not enough structure is present for passive morphology to surface. Restructuring infinitives are one such context.