Covert reciprocals: a scope-based analysis of reciprocal alternations
Jad Wehbe
August 2024 

This paper argues that the class of predicates which participate in reciprocal alternations, like the seemingly 1-place predicate hug in Jane and Mary hugged, should in fact be analyzed as 2-place predicates with a covert reciprocal in object position. The main challenge for this analysis is that there seems to be truth-conditional differences between these covert reciprocals and the counterpart with an overt reciprocal. This paper will offer an alternative perspective on these seemingly lexical differences and reanalyze them in terms of scope, arguing that the differences can be systematically predicted once appropriate scope restrictions on covert reciprocals are established. To this end, I propose that covert reciprocals are simply reciprocals that have to be bound at the lowest possible scope position. I show that these seemingly 1-place predicates behave just like overt reciprocals, modulo the low-scope requirement, for example giving rise to homogeneity and non-maximality. I therefore argue that the inferences that they give rise to can only be accounted for systematically under a syntactic account that treats them as low-scope covert reciprocals.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008334 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Submitted
keywords:	symmetric predicates; reciprocals; scope; reciprocal alternations; homogeneity; non-maximality; distributivity, semantics, syntax
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