Can we hug in Italian? An investigation on lexical and grammatical reciprocity

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, two different strategies lead to reciprocal meanings: grammatical reciprocity and lexical reciprocity. While the former is a productive strategy that takes place due to the presence of grammatical elements (e.g. “Mary and Lisa hugged each other” in English), the latter is available with a restricted set of predicates that denote a reciprocal configuration on their own, without the addition of any grammatical element (e.g. “Mary and Lisa hugged”). These two strategies do not only differ in their structural realization, but also in their interpretation: grammatical reciprocity may show multiple event readings (e.g. two separate hugs between Mary and Lisa), whereas lexical reciprocity only allows one event readings with a plural agent (e.g. one mutual hug between Mary and Lisa). Some languages (e.g. English, Hebrew, Dutch) make an overt distinction between lexical and grammatical reciprocity, while in other languages only one strategy is available on the surface (e.g. German, Serbo-Croatian, Romance). Italian is an example of such languages, where, in finite clauses, the only available reciprocal form is realized with the clitic si, and does not seem to lend immediate support to either a lexical or a grammatical strategy. In this thesis, we will investigate the realization of these two strategies in Italian. Using a number of diagnostics, including irreducible event readings, causative constructions, singular group NPs and discontinuous reciprocal constructions, we will identify a considerable number of Italian verbs with a lexical reciprocal entry. In addition, we will propose that grammatical reciprocal meanings are due to a reciprocal operator, while si is a syntactic marker of intransitivity that does not carry any reciprocal meaning.