Inherently Reciprocal Predicates - Do They Exist At All?

Abstract

Reciprocity and mutuality represent phenomena intensively studied both in linguistics and in formal semantics. Here we focus on inherently reciprocal predicates, i.e., predicates bearing the feature of mutuality in their lexical meaning. While there is a consensus generally accepted by linguists that such predicates most likely exist in all natural languages, a reliable criterion defining this type of predicates is still missing. The usual definition - adopted from formal semantics - appears to be too strong for natural language predicates, leading to the contraintuitive conclusion that such predicates do not exist at all. Here, inspired by [1], we redefine the criterion. The proposed weaker definition allows us to group predicates of a natural language in a more appropriate way, reflecting their syntactic behavior and thus enabling their adequate lexicographic description.

Keywords

• eol>mutuality
• symmetry
• reciprocity
• inherently reciprocal predicates
• lexical meaning

1. Motivation

the relation between and is the same as the relation between and ." Symmetry, mutuality, and reciprocity represent closely As attested cross-linguistically, most mutual situations related concepts, which have been widely discussed by are explicitly expressed by a specific morphosyntactic patboth linguists and logicians since the 1970s, see esp. [2, 3, tern, usually referred to as reciprocal constructions, where 4, 5] and an immense efort underlying two big collections mutuality afects two syntactic positions (as exemplified of studies [ 6, 7 ]. In the domain of natural languages in (1a) and (2a,b); compare them with the non-reciprocal (NL), these concepts are relevant for diferent layers of patterns used in (1b) and (2c)). Morphosyntactically, rethe language description. Here, we reserve the term ciprocal constructions are characterized by the pluralizamutuality for the semantic layer and reciprocity for the tion of the subject position where both participants in syntactic and morphosyntactic layer. Put it diferently, the mutual relation are expressed2 and typically by the when we refer to the semantic feature, we use the term presence of an anaphoric expression coreferring with the mutuality, while referring to a set of means encoding expression in the subject (as the expression each other in this semantic feature, we use the term reciprocity, as English (1a) and the reflexive personal pronoun se/si/seproposed, e.g., in [ 8 ].1 be/sobě/sebou or the bipartite expression jeden – druhý in

In the semantic characterization of predicates of nat- Czech, see examples (2a) and (2b), respectively). ural languages (NL predicates henceforth), the notion of a situation plays a key role. Each NL predicate de- (1) a. Aisha and Pedro pinched each other. ([ 8 ]) notes a situation (i.e., a state or an action) characterized b. Aisha pinched Pedro. by a set of participants and relationships between these participants. The situation denoted by the predicate can be syntactically structured in various ways. According to Haspelmath [ 8 ]: "A mutual situation can be defined as a situation with two or more participants (, , . . . ) in which for at least two of the participants and , (2) a. Dva doplavou současně, začnou spolu zuřivě zápasit, štípat se a navzájem se topit. (SYN v10)3 b. Dva doplavou současně, začnou spolu zuřivě zápasit, štípat jeden druhého a navzájem se topit. ‘The two swim up at the same time, and begin to wrestle furiously, pinch each other and drown each other.’ c. . . . plavec A štípá plavce B, . . . ‘. . . the swimmer A pinches the swimmer B, . . . ’ ITAT 2023: Information Technologies – Applications and Theory, 2023 $ [e-mail] (M. Lopatková); However, we can observe that some NL predicates exket0tn0e0r0o-v00a0@2u-3f8a3l.3m-9f.c6u1n1i.(cMz .(VL.oKpaettktnoevráo)v;á0)000-0001-9694-1304 press mutuality between two of their participants without (V. Kettnerová) any overt morphosyntactic marking. For example, sen© 2023 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License tence (3a) expresses that Evka ‘Eve’ and jeden Angličan 1SCPWrEooUorckReshdominpgsIhSetpN:/c1e6u1r3-w-0sa.o7r3g utAChttEorirbUustR,iohnWo4.0woInretekvrnseahrti,oonspaul (bPCsCruoBmYce4e.0e).dalilntghse(sCeEcUonRc-eWptSs.ourngd)er the term ‘one of the Englishmen’ are in the mutual relation, ‘they reciprocity, which is used for both meaning and forms expressing 2Less frequently, the object position is involved, as, e.g., in example this meaning. Others use the term symmetry instead, esp. in the (4) below. realm of formal semantics [ 9, 1 ]; here we avoid this term (as possible) 3SYN refers to the Czech National Corpus, https://www.korpus.cz/. since natural language predicates rarely denote fully symmetric Examples without sources are made-up, illustrating alternative situations, as illustrated below. syntactic structures. play together / against each other’, even though there is no overt reciprocal marking; the mutual interpretation is supported by the fact that (3a) implies reciprocal construction (3b). Similarly, sentence (4a) expresses the mutual relation between humor ‘humor’ and drsné scény ‘harsh scenes’ (‘they alternate each other’) without the presence of reciprocal marking, compare (4a) with reciprocal construction (4b). Typological studies have revealed that – despite not being numerous – such predicates appear most likely in all natural languages [ 10 ]. We will call them inherently reciprocal predicates here [ 11, 12 ].4 predicates predicates that can express mutuality predicates that cannot express mutuality (Type C.) inherently reciprocal predicates ≈ expressing mutuality both in reciprocal constructions and in constructions without over reciprocal marking (Type A.) predicates expressing mutuality only in reciprocal construction (Type B.) (3) a. Spatřil jsem Evku v hedvábných bílých plavkách, jak hraje ping-pong proti jednomu Angličanovi a druhý jim soudcuje. (SYN v10, modified) ‘I saw Evka in a silk white swimsuit playing pingpong against one of the Englishmen and the other judging them.’ b. Spatřil jsem Evku a jednoho Angličana, jak proti sobě hrají ping-pong a druhý jim soudcuje. ‘I saw Evka and one of the Englishmen playing pingpong against each other and the other judging them.’ shown that predicates intuitively classified as inherently reciprocal ones require a less degree of linguistic marking in reciprocal constructions, see esp. [ 13 ] and for Czech [ 14 ]. Thus the ‘inherently reciprocal’ feature appears to be a syntactically relevant semantic feature, and as such, it should be captured in a syntactic lexicon.

There is a commonly cited definition of predicates expressing mutuality, adopted from formal semantics; we discuss it in Section 2. We argue that this definition is (4) a. A stejně tak neváhá bleskurychle střídat humor s fully satisfied only by reciprocal constructions. In convelmi drsnými scénami, . . . (SYN v10) trast, inherently reciprocal predicates in constructions ‘And he doesn’t hesitate to alternate humor with very without overt reciprocal marking, although they express harsh scenes at lightning speed, . . . ’ mutuality as well, does not reliably meet this criterion, as b. A stejně tak neváhá bleskurychle střídat humor a discussed in Section 3.5 As a result, based on this definivelmi drsné scény, . . . tion, an inventory of NL predicates expressing mutuality ‘And he doesn’t hesitate to alternate humor and very can be established – but it is not capable to single out harsh scenes with each other at lightning speed, . . . ’ those predicates that are inherently reciprocal from this (5) a. Avšak každé válce předcházejí manévry, . . . (SYN inventory. To identify inherently reciprocal predicates, v10) we thus propose a modified version of the given criterion, ‘However, every war is preceded by maneuvers, . . . ’ on the basis of which we introduce more subtle classifib. *Válka a manévry se vzájemně předcházejí. cation of predicates expressing the relation of mutuality ‘*The war and maneuvers precede each other.’ (Section 4). Lastly, we introduce how this classification As a result, NL predicates fall into three diferent may be applied in a syntactic lexicon, namely in the vagroups with respect to mutuality, as shown in Figure 1: lency lexicon VALLEX (Section 5). on the first level, we can distinguish those predicates that can express mutuality (as the verb štípat ‘pinch’ in 2. Reciprocal (Symmetric) (1), (2), the verb hrát ‘play’ in (3), and the verb střídat ‘alternate’ in (4)) and those that cannot. The latter can Predicates in Formal Semantics be exemplified, e.g., by the verb předcházet ‘to precede’, compare (5a) and (5b). Those predicates that can express A formal definition of reciprocity can be found in a nummutuality further split into those that express mutual- ber of studies from formal semantics, one of the most ity only in reciprocal constructions (exemplified by the often cited ones is given in [ 2 ]. Here the following converb štípat ‘pinch’ in (1)) and those that beside reciprocal dition of strong reciprocity for the so-called elementary constructions create constructions expressing mutuality reciprocal sentences is introduced ( denotes a set without explicit morphosyntactic marking, referred here of cardinality at least 2, is a relation on × , and to as inherently reciprocal predicates (as illustrated by is a reciprocal element, e.g., each other): the verb hrát (proti někomu) in (3) and the verb střídat in (4)). (∀, ∈ ) ( ̸= → (, )) (*)

Distinguishing the three groups of NL predicates with

respect to mutuality is not an end in itself: it has been Thus, as paraphrased in [ 4 ], for specific substitutions of values and (, ∈ ) for the variables and : 4The terms (inherently) symmetric(al) predicates (as, e.g., in [ 4, 1 ]) or lexical reciprocals [ 6 ] are also used for the same type of predicates.

5This paper follows the study [15], where an interested reader can

ifnd a more detailed linguistic observations. (, ) ↔ (, ). [4, p. 273] relate this asymmetry to “power, control, ini

This condition is satisfied, e.g., by sentence (6) with tiative, or involvement”, Panevová [ 16 ] stresses the role identifying a set of people in the house, being the of homogeneity of the involved participants when disrelation denoted by the binary predicate to know (i.e., cussing (8). know(X, Y ) = X knows Y ), and being the reciprocal element each other. In Czech, the role of the reciprocal (8) a. Radotín se sloučil s Prahou před 30 lety. ([ 16 ]) element is taken on by the reflexive pronoun, as se in ‘3R0aydeoatírns (aagsom.’ all city near Prague) merged with Prague (2a) and sobě in (3b), or by the bipartite expression jeden b. ?? Praha se sloučila s Radotínem před 30 lety. ([ 16 ]) – druhý ‘each other’, as in (2b); all sentences (2a), (2b) ?? ‘Praha merged with Radotín 30 years ago.’ and (3b) represent reciprocal constructions, see Section 1, and fulfill the criterion (*).

3. Source of Asymmetry with NL

Predicates

(6) People in this house know each other. ([ 5 ]) (7) John met Mary at the station. ([ 4 ])

Gleitman at al. [17] conducted an extensive study of

Despite the prerequisite of the presence of reciprocal the asymmetry in constructions of inherently reciprocal marker , some reciprocal constructions without such predicates (symmetrical in the authors’ terminology, e.g. marker satisfy this condition as well, as (4b). In these similar, equal, meet, near). The series of psycholinguistic reciprocal constructions, the pluralized subject or direct experiments revealed that experimental subjects interobject, in which both participants involved in mutuality pret the pairs of sentences with swapped participants are expressed, is a suficient marker of the mutual relation as, e.g., (9a) and (9b), in a diferent way, although they between participants. assess the respective predicates as symmetrical, i.e., bear

However, as exemplified in (3a), (4a), and (7), inherent ing mutuality in their meaning (inherently reciprocal reciprocal predicates can express mutuality not only in re- in our terminology). The results of their study thus reciprocal constructions but also in constructions without vealed a paradoxical situation when inherently reciprocal any overt morphosyntactic marking (i.e., without the plu- predicates create constructions with the asymmetrical ralized subject or direct object and without the reflexive interpretation. Consequently, these constructions do not pronoun or the expression jeden – druhý). Distinguish- met the condition (**). ing inherently reciprocal predicates thus requires such As the asymmetry manifests itself just in constructions a criterion that identifies mutuality of participants also of inherently reciprocal predicates without overt reciproin the constructions that are not overtly marked. cal marking (i.e., in constructions with the afected partic

As the first step, we adopt the concept of a mutual ipants distributed into separate syntactic positions, as in situation, as proposed in [ 8 ], see Section 1, and relate it to (3a) or (7)), the authors [ 17 ] put forward the hypothesis a predicate. We will say that predicate with participants that it is the asymmetry of syntactic constructions which and satisfies the condition of mutuality if and only if causes the asymmetric interpretation of inherently rethe situation denoted by the predicate involves (at least) ciprocal predicates. In particular, the syntactic position two diferent participants and for the values , of these of participants (i.e., their distribution in the subject and participants, the following equivalence holds: object positions) imposes their interpretation as either Figure (Variant) or Ground (Referent): the subject posi (, ) ↔ (, ) (**) tion determines the status of a participant as Figure while The condition (**) now covers also (4a) as we can object positions as Ground. consider this construction and the construction with For example, in (9a) with the inherently reciprocal swapped participants (i.e., the pairs střídat humor s velmi predicate similar, expressing comparison of two entities, drsnými scénami ‘to alternate very harsh scenes with hu- North Korea in subject is interpreted as Figure, i.e., the mor’ and střídat velmi drsné scény s humorem ‘to alternate compared entity, and China in the object position as humor with very harsh scenes’) as paraphrases with the Ground, i.e., the more prominent entity to which the forsame truth conditions. mer one is compared. With swapped participants in (9b),

However, the situation is complicated by the fact that their interpretation with respect to the Figure/Ground in many cases constructions of inherently reciprocal pred- distinction is reversed, which underlies interpretive dificates without overt reciprocal marking show a certain ferences between (9a) and (9b). The ofered analysis – asymmetry between participants, as pointed out by some that asymmetry of (9a) and (9b) is brought about by the authors, see esp. [ 16, 17, 4, 12 ]. This asymmetry can be ex- asymmetric syntactic structuring of the sentences – is emplified by the pairs in (8), where only (8a) with Radotín also supported by the fact that the asymmetry disappears in subject is fully acceptable. In such cases, the condition in constructions with both participants structured in the (**) can be hardly applied. While König and Kokutani same way, i.e., in the single subject position, as in (9c). (9) a. North Korea is similar to Red China. ([17, p. 322]) b. Red China is similar to North Korea. ([17, p. 322]) c. North Korea and Red China are similar to each other.

([17, p. 326])

The same interpretive diferences between constructions with swapped participants formed by inherently reciprocal predicates are attested in Czech as well, as illustrated, e.g., by predicates denoting comparison, see Moreover, in constructions of inherently reciprocal examples (10a) and (10b) with the adjective srovnávaný, predicates with participants distributed in diferent synand space relations, see examples (11a) and (11b) with the tactic positions, the asymmetry between participants can verb sousedit, and by action predicates, see examples (12a) be further stressed by context (e.g., by an adverbial modiand (12b) with the verb setkat se. In all these examples, fying the verb), and thus the mutual relation between the the diference between sentences a. and b. can be ex- involved participants can be even blocked. For example, plained on the basis of the Figure/Ground interpretation although the verb bojovat ‘to fight’ can be considered of the afected participants, implied by their syntactic as an inherently reciprocal verb in all examples in (14), positions in the sentences. only (14d) with the involved participants structured in the same position of the (plural) subject is fully symmetrical. While (14b) and (14c) are more or less exchangeable in most contexts, the modal verb chtít ‘to want’ in (14a) introduces asymmetry to the construction. (13) a. . . . a kat . . . jednou ranou oddělil jeho hlavu od těla.

(SYN v10) ‘. . . and the executioner separated his head from his body with a single blow.’ b. . . . a kat jednou ranou oddělil jeho tělo od hlavy. ‘. . . and the executioner separated his body from his head with a single blow.’ (14) a. . . . tento mladíček tvrdí, že by chtěl bojovat s

Goliášem. (SYN v10) ‘. . . . . . this young man claims he would like to fight Goliath’ b. . . . tento mladíček bude bojovat s Goliášem. ‘. . . this young man will fight Goliath.’ c. . . . Goliáš bude bojovat s tímto mladíčkem. ‘. . . Goliath will fight this young man.’ d. . . . tento mladíček a Goliáš spolu budou bojovat. ‘. . . this young man and Goliath will fight together.’ (10) a. Galský Taranis je "hromovládce", srovnávaný Římany s Jupiterem. (SYN v10) ‘The Gallic Taranis is the "thunderlord", compared by the Romans to Jupiter.’ b. Jupiter je "hromovládce", srovnávaný Římany s galským Taranisem. ‘Jupiter is the "thunderlord", compared by the Romans to the Gallic Taranis.’ (11) a. Nevelká stavba . . . přímo sousedí s domem Le Corbusierova bratra Alberta Jeannereta a jeho rodiny. (SYN v10) ‘The small building . . . is directly adjacent to the house of Le Corbusier’s brother Albert Jeanneret and his family.’ b. Dům Le Corbusierova bratra Alberta Jeannereta a jeho rodiny . . . přímo sousedí s nevelkou stavbou. ‘The house of Le Corbusier’s brother Albert Jeanneret and his family . . . is directly adjacent to the small building.’

To summarize, although inherently reciprocal predicates are supposed to carry the feature of mutuality between two of their participants in their lexical meaning (and (12) a. Krátce před smrtí se setkal s Elizabeth Stoneovou, . . . thus their mutual interpretation should not depend on (SYN v10) special syntactic constructions), structuring these par‘He met Elizabeth Stone shortly before his death, . . . ’ ticipants in diferent syntactic positions results in the b. Krátce před jeho smrtí se s ním setkala Elizabeth asymmetry, which is manifested by a meaning shift when Stoneová, . . . the afected participants are interchanged in the involved ‘Elizabeth Stone met him shortly before his death, . . . ’ positions. Put it diferently, “symmetry is a property Gleitman et al. [ 17 ] limited their attention to con- of lexical items and has no special syntax”, in terms of structions of those inherently reciprocal adjectives and [ 17 ], constructional properties then bring about lesser or verbs where the subject position is involved in mutuality. bigger asymmetry. As a result, criterion (**) relying on However, similar interpretive diferences can be observed the preservation of truth conditions when the afected also in constructions of those inherently reciprocal pred- participants permuted cannot be used for identification icates where the participants in the mutual relation are of inherently reciprocal predicates. Otherwise, it would distributed in two object positions, as illustrated by ex- lead to an inescapable conclusion that there are no inamples (4) above and (13). herently reciprocal predicates at all, contradicting the

Again, the interpretive diference between (13a) and generally accepted hypothesis. (13b) can be accounted for by the Figure/Ground distinction: namely, the direct object position is associated with the Figure interpretation and the indirect object in the form of the prepositional case od+genitive with the Ground interpretation.

The usually cited condition of strong reciprocity (*) [ 4 ] (, ) & (, ) (†) takes this property as a property of the given predicate, So similarly to (**), the condition (†) makes is possible i.e., it should be apply to all instances of this predicate – to consider a predicate together with a particular choice to any lexical choice of the afected participants, in any of its participants involved in mutuality. The diference syntactic construction, in any context.6 As such, it is too lies in the fact that (†) generalizes over individual triplets strong for classification of NL predicates. On the other (, ) and examines thus the property of the predicate hand, the condition of mutuality (**), inspired by [ 8 ], is itself (instead of assessing individual instances in isoapplied to a predicate with a particular lexical choice of lation). the afected participants (i.e., with a particular choice In opposition to the previous approaches, where symof their values in [ 4 ] and (*)), that is, to the particular metry and asymmetry are treated as sharp concepts (and instances of the predicate. As such, it is too weak, and thus reciprocal predicates must be symmetrical in all hence not helpful in classifying NL predicates with re- their occurrences), in [ 18, 1 ] symmetry is treated as spect to the feature of mutuality in their lexical meaning. a graded property. Still, the authors distinguish four Neither of these criterion in isolation is thus suitable for distinct groups of predicates: distinguishing the set of inherently reciprocal predicates. (i) predicates expressing mutuality for all instances of participants (‘purely symmetric predicates’ in 4.1. The Concept of Symmetry As Graded their terminology), e.g., meet, similar, sibling; Property: Symmetrical Instances (ii) predicates expressing mutuality, which, however, can be blocked (‘mixed symmetric predicates’ in their terminology; there are both symmetric and asymmetric instances of the given predicates), e.g., kiss, opposed to, friend; (iii) predicates not expressing mutuality but enabling symmetric instances (‘mixed asymmetric predicates’ in their terminology), e.g., drawn, kill, hit; (iv) predicates asymmetric for all their instances (‘purely asymmetric predicates’), e.g., contain, father, below.

The problem with possible asymmetry of predicates in

tuitively classified as inherently reciprocal predicates is addressed by Partee [ 18 ] and Gleitman and Partee [ 1 ]. The authors show that the usual linguistic test indicating "symmetrical" predicates,7 the logical definition, and judgments ofered by native speakers are often in contradiction. Gleitman and Partee [ 1 ] thus propose to consider – in addition to the relations satisfying the condition of strong reciprocity (*) as a property of the whole relation , which must be valid for all instances/values of , – also relations symmetrical only for some instances: • A symmetrical instance of a relation is a pair , such that (, ) & (, ). • An asymmetrical instance of a relation is a pair , such that (, ) & ¬(, ).

Predicates intuitively understood as inherently reciprocal should fall under the first two types of predicates in the above given classification. However, the existence of ‘purely symmetric predicates’ seems to be questionable since for each of these predicates, one can typically ifnd contexts in which mutuality between the afected participants is canceled.

4. Revised Approaches to

Symmetrical Predicates

participants such that and , satisfy the following condition (†):

Based on this consideration, we can then ask whether, for a given predicate , there is any instance , of its 6Though some authors point out that this condition is fully true only for reciprocal constructions, see esp. [ 4 ] who refer to the predicates satisfying this condition as to symmetric predicates: “Perfect symmetry is only expressed by reciprocal constructions An interesting approach to the concept of predicates exand this symmetry is often iconically signalled by the fact that the pressing mutuality can be found in [ 19 ] – Winter points relevant semantic arguments are encoded by the same grammatical out that reciprocity as a linguistic phenomenon is often 7rTehlaetiaount.h”o[4rs, ph.a2v7e3]t.he so-called Litmus Test in mind, examining confused with symmetry as a concept belonging to the pairs of constructions like John and Bill are similar/match/hug and domain of logic. To avoid this, he proposes to start (as in *John is similar/match/hug where the constructions with plural sub- [ 1 ]) with those binary predicates that have also the soject should express, roughly speaking, the mutual relation between called unary-collective forms (illustrated by examples as John and Bill. A and B dated / are identical / are cousins.)8 and compare We can see certain limitation here as (like in other logic-oriented works) the authors do not distinguish between particular construc- 8Based on the provided examples, the unary-collective forms of tions with a predicate and the predicate as an abstract unit bearing predicates correspond to those that satisfy the Litmus Test, see some lexical properties as such (regardless of diferent syntactic footnote 7; i.e., they have plural subject and they express the mutual construction it can create). relation between participants in the subject position.

4.2. Unary-Collective Predicates And

Their Binary Counterparts 5. Inherently Reciprocal Predicates in Lexicographic Practice them to their basic forms (i.e., to the forms illustrated by A dated B / A is identical to B / A is B’s cousin.). The author observes that for predicates that are symmetric from the logical point of view (i.e., predicates with in- Let us repeat that inherently reciprocal predicates are terchangeable arguments, cf. condition (*)), these two characterized by the possibility to express mutuality betypes of constructions can serve as paraphrases with the tween participants in constructions that are not overtly same meaning (contrary to asymmetric predicates). For marked, see esp. examples (3) and (4) in Section 1. Howexample, in (16) with the asymmetric predicate talk to, ever, the mutuality condition (**) is met only by some the first sentence “can be interpreted reciprocally, but instances of these predicates, as we have seen in Section also distributively: Dan talked, and Sue talked as well.” 3. The existence of the instances violating this condi[ 19 ]; the two constructions cannot be thus assessed as tion leads to the conclusion that – contrary to linguistic paraphrases (contrary to all the sentences in (15) which intuition – natural languages do not have any inherhave only the reciprocal interpretation). ently reciprocal predicates. This well known limitation inspired researchers to seek for a weaker but reliable (15) Sue and Dan dated. ↔ Sue dated Dan. criterion, as discussed in Section 4, making it possible (↔ Dan dated Sue.) to examine not only behavior of predicates in individ(16) Sue and Dan talked. ual constructions but (i) abstract from concrete syntactic ↮ Sue talked to Dan. & Dan talked to Sue. constructions and (ii) relax the requirement of symmetry to individual instances of predicates, as in [ 1, 19 ]. Only

Inspired by this observation, the author define the such a criterion is applicable in lexicographic description, criterion of plain symmetry (‡), which is applied to an which takes a predicate as a language unit representing unary-collective predicates over sums of (singular) all its syntactic constructions. entities in (with cardinality 2 (or more)) and a binary These considerations led us to define inherently recippredicate alternating with , ranging over pairs of rocal predicates as such predicates for which there are entities in : attested the instances of constructions expressing mutuality without overt reciprocal marking. This approach is (‡) based on the following observation: ∀, ∈ , ̸= : ( + ) ↔ (, ) & (, )

Criterion. If for a given predicate there is (even a single)

In other words, Winter limits the requirement of sym- example where mutuality is expressed in the construction metry only to constructions logically equivalent to spe- that is not overtly marked then the feature of mutualcific constructions with plural subject and mutual mean- ity must be already contained in the lexical meaning of ing – the predicate is not necessarily symmetric in the given predicate (at least as a potential feature) and all its instances. The proposed criterion serves as an- the predicate thus comes under the class of inherently other interesting approach addressing the problem of the reciprocal predicates. discussed inadequacy of the logic-based condition (*). To put it diferently, the criterion abstracts from prop

Winter applies the condition (‡) to English (and to erties brought about by specific morphosyntactic cona small set of other languages like Hebrew). However, structions (constructions with overt reciprocal marking); it is not clear how to adapt such approach to typologi- instead, unlike [ 1 ], it examines lexical properties of excally diferent languages. For example, Czech attests that amined predicates themselves. predicates intuitively classified as inherently reciprocal This approach has been employed in the VALLEX lexipredicates typically form constructions parallel to those con9 [ 20 ], where three types of verbs are distinguished considered as unary-collective ones, as, e.g., diskutovat with respect to reciprocity: (s někým) ‘discuss with somebody’, which, however, can be interpreted distributively as well, compare (17a) and (17b). (17) a. . . . během malování portrétu Masaryka diskutovali malíř a prezident i o Komenském . . . (SYN v10) ‘. . . during the painting of Masaryk’s portrait, the painter and the president also discussed Comenius . . . ’ b. Britové a Němci diskutují o veřejné službě. (SYN v10) ‘British and Germans discuss about public service.’

A. inherently reciprocal predicates, i.e., predicates bearing the feature of mutuality in their lexical meaning, as defined in the previous paragraph (e.g., bojovat ‘to fight’, diskutovat ‘to discuss’, and kombinovat ‘to combine’); this type comprises predicates that typically fall under (i)-(ii) in the taxonomy defined in [ 1 ], i.e., predicates expressing mutuality for at least some of their instances even without overt reciprocal marking, see Section 4.1;

6. Conclusion

While typological studies have revealed that inherently reciprocal predicates (i.e., predicates bearing the feature of mutuality in their lexical meaning) appear most likely in all natural languages, available formal criteria striving to define such predicates are not satisfactory as they are either too strict (applied to the whole predicate in its all instances) or too weak (applied only to individual instances of a predicate) (as exemplified on Czech predicates). In this paper, we have thus proposed the modified version of such criteria. The proposed criterion abstracts from particular syntactic constructions of examined predicates (and from features brought about by these constructions). Thus it allows us to focus on the features contained already in their lexical meaning. Based on this criterion we have introduced a more subtle classification of predicates expressing the relation of mutuality. This classification has been applied in the valency lexicon VALLEX.

Acknowledgment

The work described herein has been supported by the

grant Language Understanding: From Syntax to Discourse (LUSyD) of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), No. GX20-16819X.

The work on the VALLEX lexicon has been using data and tools provided by the LINDAT /CLARIAH-CZ Research Infrastructure (https://lindat.cz), supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (project No. LM2023062). lemmas lexical units

lexemes

References

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