Reflexive and middle constructions in Chini

In this paper, I rely primarily on examples from discourse in Chini, a language of northeastern Papua New Guinea, in order to describe how reflexivity and autopathic semantic relations are expressed. First, I describe the reflexive possessive construction. I suggest that the coreferential association is between the possessor and the most topicworthy participant(s), which often, but not always, corresponds to the clause-internal subject. I then describe the middle construction and argue that its primary function is to identify the main participant in a clause as a semantic patient. The potential for autopathic readings of clauses headed by middle verb forms depends on the degree of the participant's control over the activity and furthermore involves interplays between lexical semantics and contextual interpretation. Finally, I discuss certain specialized middle constructions where the reflexive or reciprocal interpretation is made absolute.