Reflexives, Reciprocals and Contrast

Abstract

In many languages, reflexively marked predicates with plural arguments can describe scenarios of reciprocal action (Evans 2008; Maslova 2008; Murray 2007, 2008; Nedjalkov 2007). This paper analyzes such cases, and shows that they can be given a rather simple, univocal analysis, one that follows from certain now-commonplace assumptions in the semantic theory of plurals and events (Krifka 1992; Kratzer 2003, 2008). In addition, I analyze the effect that so-called 'intensifiers' have upon the interpretation of reflexively marked predicates in these languages. Such intensifiers are often said to 'disambiguate' the sentence, only allowing it to describe cases of distributive reflexive action (Gast & Haas 2008, Heine & Miyashita 2008, Wiemer 2007). This is shown to be only partly true, as there are contexts where such sentences can also describe reciprocal action. I demonstrate that all the key interactions here follow from a few basic assumptions concerning the semantics of focus.

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