ABSTRACT
Although the reflexive clitic SE is not a morpheme strictu sensu, it is well known that it displays a wide range of functions beyond co-referenciality in Spanish, spelling out different semantic meanings. This chapter studies its role as a (non-)oppositional voice morpheme—in passives, anticausatives and inherently pronominal verbs—as well as its role as an aspectual marker when combined with transitive verbs. There are three main kinds of diathesis: active, where the agent/cause argument functions as syntactic subject and the patient as direct object; passive, where the agent/cause is syntactically demoted—albeit semantically interpreted—and the patient occupies the subject position; and middle, where there is only one argument, the patient subject. Analytic passives, which show person inflection, constitute a syntactic means of codifying passive diathesis, whereas SE-passives, restricted to the third person, constitute a morphological passive. Both are considered unaccusative constructions, since there is only one argument at the syntactic level, bearing the patient role and occupying the subject position.
