Reciprocal predicates: a prototype model

Imke Kruitwagen,Yoad Winter,James Hampton

doi:10.3765/elm.1.4868

Imke Kruitwagen, Yoad Winter + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.1.4868

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Abstract

Many languages have verbal stems like hug and marry whose intransitive realization is interpreted as reciprocal. Previous semantic analyses of such reciprocal intransitives rely on the assumption of symmetric participation. Thus, 'Sam and Julia hugged' is assumed to entail both 'Sam hugged Julia' and 'Julia hugged Sam'. In this paper we report experimental results that go against this assumption. It is shown that although symmetric participation is likely to be preferred by speakers, it is not a necessary condition for accepting sentences with reciprocal verbs. To analyze the reciprocal alternation, we propose that symmetric participation is a typical feature connecting the meanings of reciprocal and binary forms. This accounts for the optionality as well as to the preference of this feature. Further, our results show that agent intentionality often boosts the acceptability of sentences with reciprocal verbs. Accordingly, we propose that intentionality is another typical semantic feature of such verbs, separate from symmetric participation.

Highlights

Reciprocal verbs alternate between a unary and a binary form:(1) Julia and Sam hugged. (2) Sam hugged Julia.In the intransitive sentence (1) the verb hug takes a plural agent, whereas (2) distinguishes two thematic roles
We propose that the typicality approach embodies a more adequate analysis of reciprocal verbs, which is relevant for other alternations such as active-passive alternations or active-causative alternations
We show that something similar holds of reciprocal verb concepts by identifying an attribute separate from symmetric participation that contributes to the typicality of reciprocal events

Summary

Introduction

Reciprocal verbs alternate between a unary and a binary form:(1) Julia and Sam hugged. (2) Sam hugged Julia.In the intransitive sentence (1) the verb hug takes a plural agent, whereas (2) distinguishes two thematic roles. Most previous works have analyzed the semantics of alternations as in (1)-(2) under the assumption that reciprocal events as reported by (1) are obligatorily symmetric. These works rely on the introspective judgement that (1) logically entails (2). In contrast to these truth-conditional approaches, we propose that sentences like (1) support symmetric events as part of their most typical interpretation. (2) is true in the most typical events reported by (1) but it is not logically entailed by (1) This typicality approach is supported by experimental results on filmed scenarios where speakers accept reciprocal sentences (1) but reject sentences like (2). We propose that the typicality approach embodies a more adequate analysis of reciprocal verbs, which is relevant for other alternations such as active-passive alternations or active-causative alternations

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