Re: Russain reflexive pronoun

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Ray" <ray28238317@...> wrote:

> 1. Professor poprosil assistenta chitat' svoj doklad.
> This means "The professor asked the assistant to read self's

report.

First, one should use the perfective <proc^itát'> (<c^itát'> sounds
very unnative in this context>). Then, the whole sentence sounds a
bit ambiguous without a wider context -- it's not clear who's the
author of the report, the assistant or the professor himself.

> Now, what is the word for "me" in Russian, if I want to replace
> "assistenta" by it?

<Proféssor poprosíl menjá proc^itát' svoj doklád> (the ambiguity
remains).

> And, once we have the Russian word for "me" in place
> of "assistenta", can "svoj" refer to "Professor"?

Yes, it still can. One should use something like <Proféssor
poprosíl, c^tóby ja proc^ël svoj doklád> to disambiguate.

> (I was told that svoj in (1) can refer either to "assistenta" or
> "professor".)

That's right.

Sergei