Lexical Reciprocal Verbs: a typicality approach

Abstract

This dissertation studied the semantic relation between the different forms of the reciprocal alternation: unary collective sentences (Carrie and Aidan fought), binary sentences (Carrie fought Aidan) and “with” sentences (Carrie fought with Aidan). Results of the experiments that I reported show that, in contrast to the common assumption in the literature, the reciprocal alternation does not show a unidirectional entailment from unary and “with” to binary reciprocal sentences but has a more complex semantics. I have argued that the semantic relation between the different reciprocal alternates can be accounted for by a threshold model of the kind that is common in cognitive theories of concepts (Hampton 2007). The new experimental work on reciprocal verbs supports the proposed implementation of the threshold model. In this implementation, a verbal root has a conceptual core that specifies the main attributes of the verb’s lexical meaning. We have especially focused on the kind of Activity and Intentionality that is required for the verb’s agent. These attributes are shared between different alternate forms of the reciprocal verb, though their weights vary between those alternations. The typicality of an event for a sentence like Carrie fought Aidan is determined by the Activity and Intentionality of Carrie towards Aidan in that event. A typicality value makes the sentence true if it exceeds a pragmatically given threshold. This treatment is reminiscent of Dowty’s (1991) proto-role analysis. Standard thematic roles like agent and patient and the partner role proposed by Rákosi (2008) are indirectly defined by the functions of Activity and Intentionality that are specified for the verbal root, instead of being fixed roles. These functions specify typicality values for pairs of individuals in an event, hence giving rise to the typicality values of binary forms, “with” forms and unary forms using different arithmetic operations relying on different weights. The different semantic behaviors of these forms are explained by these different weights, while the similarities between them are due to the use of the same conceptual core of the root: the same activity and intentionality. From this threshold model we deduced a number of entailments and non-entailments between sentences with reciprocal alternates. The main prediction of the threshold model is that, in contrast to the common assumption in the literature, unary reciprocal sentences such as Carrie and Aidan fought and “with” sentences like Carrie fought with Aidan do not require symmetric participation from their arguments. All predicted entailments and non-entailments of the threshold model were tested and supported experimentally by collecting truth value judgements on reciprocal sentences in various situations.