It has been proposed and accepted fairly widely, in one form or another, that the Computational System (=CS) (the narrowly construed part of the language faculty, with the other part being the mental lexicon) makes reference to a formal property of some items in the mental Lexicon, as they are included as input to the (CS), in such a way that it ensures that they cannot be allowed in the output of the Computational System unless there is an item in some specified position in the representation of which they are part (with the item in question 'serving as their antecedent'), whether the restriction is stated as one on the representation or one on derivation.

One such example is the so-called reflexive in English (himself, herself, etc.). Due to their hypothesized property alluded to above (and other properties that differentiate him from her), the (b) examples in (1)-(3) below are predicted to be unacceptable.

(1) 　a. 　John loves himself.
　　b. 　John thinks Mary loves himself.
(2) 　a. 　John recommended himself for that position.
　　b. 　John thought that Mary had recommended himself for that position.
(3) 　a. 　Mary, who had firmly believed that Chomsky would recommend her, was shocked to death when she found out that Chomsky recommended Bill instead. (where her = Mary)
　　b. 　Mary, who had firmly believed that Chomsky would recommend herself, was shocked to death when she found out that Chomsky recommended Bill instead.

One of the generalizations that result from the relevant property of the English reflexives is (4).

(4) An English reflexive in an object position is felicitous only if there is a phrase in the same clause that can serve as its antecedent.

Assuming that the empirical content of the notion of 'antecedent' here is simple enough, it is straightforward to test the validity of (4). (4) is claimed to be a result of some property of the CS, which is generally understood to be universal (with the possible exception of the value of the so-called head-parameter) and some lexical property of what the CS refers to. To the extent that the universal and language-particular hypotheses in question are valid, the predicted judgment on the relevant examples should be robust.

The reactions by native speakers of English seem to indicate that (4) is indeed a valid generalization. (See Methodology [29083].)

Now, if zibunzisin in Japanese had the same formal property, we would expect the generalization in (5) to be valid, and the predicted speaker judgments robust.

(5) Zibunzisin in an object position is felicitous only if there is a phrase in the same clause that can serve as its antecedent.

The native speakers' reactions to the Japanese counterparts of (1b), (2b) and (3b), given below, are far from what is predicted. (See Methodology [29083].)

I would like to suggest that native speakers of Japanese check the examples below. Non-native speakers of Japanese may want to ask a native speaker of Japanese about how hopeless the examples in (5)-(7) are under the specified interpretations. If you are a native speaker of English, you can compare how you find the (b) examples in (1)-(3) and how your 'Japanese informants' react to (5) and (7). As discussed in the thread under Methodology [29073], it is not sufficient to provide a few or several (or even many) minimal pairs that might seem to support the generalization in (5). After all, what is claimed in (5) is that something just cannot be possible due to the CS-related properties. The point is thus to see if we indeed cannot come up with acceptable examples that are predicted to be impossible no matter how hard we try.

(5) a. John-wa Mary-ga zibunzisin-ni horete iru to omoikonde ita. (John = zibunzisin)
(intended as) 'John thought that Mary loved himself.'
b. John-wa Mary-ga zibunzisin-o uragiru to-wa omotte inakatta. (John = zibunzisin)
(intended as) 'John did not think that Mary would betray himself.'
c. John-wa Mary-ga zibunzisin-o suisensita to bakari omotteita. (John = zibunzisin)
(intended as) 'John firmly believed that Mary had recommended himself.'

(6) Chomsky-ga zibunzisin-o suisensuru to bakari omotte ita John-wa Chomsky-ga Bill-o suisensita to sitte gakuzen to sita.
(intended as) 'John, who thought that Chomksy would recommend himself (=John), was shocked to death when he found out that Chomsky recommended Bill.

If your Japanese informants find it easier to see the examples written in Japanese and if your computer has Japanese fonts, you can show them (5') and (6').

(5') a. ジョンはメリーが自分自身に惚れていると思い込んでいた。（ジョン=自分自身)
b. ジョンはメリーが自分自身を裏切るとは思っていなかった。（ジョン=自分自身)
c. ジョンはメリーが自分自身を推薦したとばかり思っていた。（ジョン=自分自身)

(6') チョムスキーが自分自身を推薦すると思い込んでいたジョンは、チョムスキーがビルを推薦したと知って愕然とした。(自分自身=ジョン)

I am pretty sure that you will understand what I mean.

Notice incidentally that (3b) in English and (6) in Japanese can be easily understood as having been uttered in essentially the same context. Because of the use of herself in (3b), which cannot 'go with' Chomsky (assuming that Chomsky here means Noam Chomsky), (3b) must favor the Mary =herself reading, if anything. In the case of (6), given that zibunzisin can in principle 'go with' any nominal phrase (NP/DP), regardless of the 'person', 'gender', or 'number' that it 'represents', (6) does not favor the John =zibunzisin reading in the way (3b) favors the Mary =herself reading. If such a factor as this affected the speaker judgments at all, we should expect that (3b) allows the Mary =herself reading more easily than (6) allows the John =zibunzisin reading.

Yet, native speakers of English reject the Mary =herself reading quite robustly for (3b) (and (3b) is in fact judged unacceptable since the Chomsky =herself reading is not possible for an independent reason ). By sharp contrast, Japanese native speakers accept (6) with the Mary =herself reading fairly easily. This would be quite unexpected if zibunzisin had the formal property under discussion. Notice that a few speakers' not finding (6) unacceptable under the specified reading should not be considered as any comfort for those who wish to maintain that zibunzisin has the property under discussion.

It is necessary, first of all, to see if such judgments would be reproduced with a number of other examples of the same structure. At one point, there were two informants who 'systematically rejected' (5) and (6) under the specified interpretation. When asked to check a few months later the same examples ((5) and (6)), one of the two informants accepted all of them.

One might argue that the lexical specification internalized by the one remaining informant (i.e., one out of 40 or so informants at the time being referred to here) is what is relevant to the research that maintains that zibunzisin has the property in question. In order to pursue that line of thinking, it would be necessary to first make sure that this speaker indeed rejects other examples of the same form as (5) and (6) under the intended interpretation, that the speaker is not considering the 'preferred reading' (and judging the not-preferred reading as 'unacceptable'), etc.

Only after having checked those, should we seriously consider the research program which only considers the properties of the CS and what it refers to that might have been internallized by such (rather rare) speakers.

My personal knowledge of some of those researchers who endorse or assume the thesis that zibunzisin has the relevant property in question is that they do not have particularly robust judgments themselves on the examples that are predicted to be impossible. They seem to focus on particular pairs of examples and maintain that the alleged contrast in those pairs is what supports the thesis in question. Leaving aside how clearly unacceptable those allegedly ill-formed examples are to many speakers (see my "Assessing Competing Analyses: Two Hypotheses about 'Scrambling' in Japanese" (2006) and "Otagai" (2006) for discussion, both of which are available at the Downloadable page at this HP), such a move is missing the point. The point must be, as noted above, that something is predicted to be impossible due to some properties of the CS and what it refers to (in this case the lexical property of some items (such as zibunzisin), and hence being able to come up with some pairs of examples that seem to support the thesis in question would not mean much if there are (numerous) acceptable examples of the same schematic form despite the prediction that they fail to yield the specified anaphoric relation in question. This point seems to be rather poorly understood, if at all, in the field at large, resulting in much confusion, while contributing to the creation and expansion of "a swamp over which the paralyzing vapours of the publication explosion hold an eternal sway," as Popper 1974: 977 puts it. For the methodological issue behind this, please see the thread under Methodology [29073].

Popper, K. 1974. "Replies to My Critics," in Paul Authur Schilpp ed., Volume 2 of The Philosophy of Karl Popper, The Open Court Publishing, La Salle, Illinois, pp. 961-1197.