Does it take two to tango? On Reciprocal Verbs as Collective Predicate Concepts.

Abstract

Most works on reciprocity so far relied on the assumption that the intransitive variant of reciprocal verbs - e.g. Mark and Violet hugged – logically entails its two transitive counterparts: Violet hugged Mark and Mark hugged Violet. According to this view, symmetry is a logical consequence from reciprocity. In contrast with most previous analyses, I hypothesized that the relation between reciprocity and symmetry is not logical, but preferential. Results from two truth-value judgement tasks testing the acceptability of reciprocal verbs describing non-symmetric events confirmed my hypothesis. Results suggested that two factors positively influence the acceptability of reciprocal verbs: one factor is identical participation – the degree to which a group acts in an identical manner with respect to the action that a verb specifies; a second factor is collective intentionality – the degree to which a group has a shared intention and/or shared belief.