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This paper deals with the Czech reflexive agent-demoting construction (i.e. the construction in which the verb form contains the reflexive marker se and the agent is demoted from the subject position), more specifically, with the usage of this construction in 15th–17th century, a period when a notable increase of its frequency is documented in the literature. The aim is to identify the typical contexts (situation types) in which the construction was used and to describe their prototypical formal, semantic and pragmatic features with regard to the verb, its participants and the pattern as a whole. The situation types are divided into two groups: (1) the types typically expressing generalizations over eventualities with universal/generic agents, and (2) the types tending to express non-generalized eventualities with individual agents. The types in the first group include habituality, general truths, general (im)possibility, instructions, general modality of necessity and hypothetical circumstances; the second group contains metatexts, pragmatic indirectness, performatives, prominence of the patient and simple defocusing of the agent. The presented description can be used for comparing the functions of this construction with the situation in other diachronic periods, as well as with the distribution of other agent-demoting constructions which either coexisted or still coexist with the reflexive construction in Czech.

This paper deals with the Czech reflexive agent-demoting construction (i.e. the construction in which the verb form contains the reflexive marker se and the agent is demoted from the subject position), more specifically, with the usage of this construction in 15th-17th century, a period when a notable increase of its frequency is documented in the literature. The aim is to identify the typical contexts (situation types) in which the construction was used and to describe their prototypical formal, semantic and pragmatic features with regard to the verb, its participants and the pattern as a whole. The situation types are divided into two groups: (1) the types typically expressing generalizations over eventualities with universal/generic agents, and (2) the types tending to express non-generalized eventualities with individual agents. The types in the first group include habituality, general truths, general (im)possibility, instructions, general modality of necessity and hypothetical circumstances; the second group contains metatexts, pragmatic indirectness, performatives, prominence of the patient and simple defocusing of the agent. The presented description can be used for comparing the functions of this construction with the situation in other diachronic periods, as well as with the distribution of other agent-demoting constructions which either coexisted or still coexist with the reflexive construction in Czech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]