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Ekkehard Knig, Shigehiro Kokutani

Towards a typology of reciprocal constructions: focus on German and Japanese

The aim of this article is twofold: (a) to offer a detailed analysis of reciprocal constructions in German and Japanese against the background of a preliminary typology of such constructions developed in analogy to the one proposed by L. Faltz (1985) for reflexivity and (b) to examine the implications of these analyses for supporting and possibly refining this typology. Reciprocity is defined as the grammatical encoding of symmetric relations, and four different types of reciprocal constructions are distinguished. Languages typically have more than one strategy at their disposal, which can often be combined but may also contrast and differ in their interpretation. It is shown that symmetric predicates play an important role in reciprocal structures and provide in fact one of their historical foundations. Combinations of quantifiers (and alterity expressions like other), another important source for the development of reciprocal markers, are shown to manifest considerable variation across languages, which is not compatible with the view that they can simply be subsumed under the category “anaphor.” Our typological approach provides some new perspectives and perhaps even solutions for some traditional puzzles in the analysis of reciprocal constructions in German and Japanese.

Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0024-3949
Volume: 44, 02/2006
Pages: 271 - 302

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