Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin & Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
30 November - 2 December, 2007
Concepts of Reciprocity in Linguistics and other Fields
Ekkehard König & Anneliese Kuhle (Freie Universität Berlin)
0. Introduction
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Reciprocity lies at the very root of social organization and ethics. (→ interesting for may
disciplines)
An enormous semantic complexity is expressed by a simple clause or sentence. → great
variety of solutions;
Are the forms and patterns of mutuality and exchange discussed in biology and sociology the
same as the prototypes discussed in linguistics? In how far are the linguistic concepts more
abstract? This discussion is relevant for any attempt to provide a solid basis for comparative
and cross-linguistic work.
What will emerge is a richer picture than is presented by formal semantics
(compositionality of formal properties found in English, vague, univocal, etc.)
1. Concepts of reciprocity outside of linguistics
a. Biology: altruistic behaviour of animals
- In how far is cooperative (altruistic) behaviour favoured by natural selection?
‘Kin selection’ (Hamilton, 1964) is not altruistic.
The theory of ‘reciprocal altruism’ (Trivers , 1971) sets out to explain the evolution of
cooperative behaviour among animals (among kin and among non-kin; Empirical support:
Reciprocal food-sharing in the vampire bat, Wilkinson, 1984)
Cooperative behaviour without direct gain can be advantageous under certain conditions:
(i) small size of groups
(ii) cognitive abilities: ability to distinguish cooperative and non-cooperative ‘partners’;
response is based on experience;
(iii) environmental conditions (length of survival without food)
(iv) low costs and high profit for others
b. Applied mathematics/game theory (extension of reciprocal altruism to further domains)
(this selective mechanism which favours cooperative behaviour has been investigated by
game theory)
- mathematical models of situations, in which individuals with identical, conflicting or mixed
interests have to interact; pursue their own interests by anticipating the thoughts and moves of
the opponent to take decisions which serve your own interests; spontaneous origin of
cooperative behaviour
- The Prisoner’s Dilemma (Axelrod, 1984): ‘one-shot’ PD → defection (i.e. cooperation with
authorities);
‘iterated PD’ → cooperation (silence) and then ‘tit-for-tat’; cooperation is advantageous;
defection is punished; maximizing your gains;
Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin
30 November- 2 December, 2007
- the live-and-let-live strategy in the trench warfare of World War I (Ashworthy, 1980).
c. Ethology: Reciprocity among primates; reciprocity mechanisms (attitudes) (Frans de
Waal, 2005); behavioural patterns of reciprocal altruism are more diversified
- reciprocity and mutuality in several domains (not only food-sharing but also: hunting,
fighting, solving conflicts, grooming, ranking)
- cooperation at the level of the group (not discussed any further)
- cooperation at the individual level: three forms of reciprocity
(a) symmetry-based (mutual affection; without need to keep track of daily give-and-take;
typical of humans in close relationships)
(b) attitudinal (conditional; cooperation in obtaining food; parties mirror one another’s
attitude, exchanging favours on the spot; humans: strategies with strangers)
(c) calculated (individuals keep track of the benefits they exchange with particular partners,
which helps them to decide to whom they want to return favours; building alliances;
cooperation is not tied to a particular stimulus → assessing the overall situation, change of
perspective; humans: in distant and professional relationships)
c. Sociology and anthropology
- reciprocity as a prerequisite for ending a condition of war of everyone against everyone”
(Hobbes)
- reciprocity among humans involves social processes of exchange
- 2 basic forms of reciprocity (Stegbauer, 2002): positive interaction and exchange
(a) direct reciprocity; the one who gives also receives; (“tit for tat”); corruption;
buying/selling; analysable in terms of dyadic relations;
Basic study: - the gift as a total social phenomenon; anything can be the object of giving and
returning; a community is founded on a ritualized recognition of interdependence (Marcel
Mauss, 1924); even ritualized destruction in forms of exchange (potlatch); transfer of
reciprocity to cultural domains;
modern societies: differentiation between domains (economic, social, religious);
heteromorphous
exchange of goods: purely economic (economic and legal institutions)
gifts; social function, social rules; rituals of food sharing;
symbolic meaning of food sharing; commemoration;
(b) generalized reciprocity (no direct , dyadic exchange; group membership; time delay;
solidarity; mediated by group membership: neighbour, countrymen; intergeneration
reciprocity; tax; pension; transitivity of friendship or enmity))
(c) reciprocity of roles (frame of reference; exchange is determined by positions of
complementary roles: ‘doctor’ – ‘patient’; ‘artist’ – ‘audience’; ‘friend’ – ‘friend’); symmetric
and asymmetric roles (converseness, auto-converseness); there is a wide-spread tendency for
converse (especially verbal) oppositions to develop synonymous readings ( teach – learn;
lend – borrow; let – rent, ‘host’ – ‘guest’, etc.); important frame of reference: roles determine
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Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin
30 November- 2 December, 2007
to a large extent what kind of exchange is required or admissible and what kind of goods can
be exchanged;
(d) reciprocity of perspectives (basic cognitive abilities underlying exchange; mind reading;
understanding; to put oneself in somebody’s place; try to see it my way) → self-reflexive
perspective;
- Summary: concepts of reciprocity outside of linguistics are positively evaluated forms of
mutual actions or events, organised around prototypes like ‘giving’, ‘exchange’, ‘hospitality’;
altruistic actions, but based on self-interest; remarkable cases; neither symmetry nor
simultaneity are central; a time delay is regarded as essential for the ‘gift’; temporal (rather
than local) chaining situations are included in these concepts;
2. Concepts of ‘Reciprocity’ in Linguistics (cf. Dalrymple et. al., 1998)
(1) Inhabitants of this village help each other. (positive, weak)
(2) Paul and Mary hate/ruined each other. (negative, simultaneous/sequential)
(3) The boxes were stacked on top of each other. (chaining)
(4) Inhabitants of these islands used to eat each other. (generalized)
(5) People in this house know each other. (strong)
(6) Many people at the party are married to each other. (pair wise reciprocal)
(differences depend on verb, tense, number: dual vs. plural, etc.)
- essential semantic properties
(i) plurality of arguments/participants (⎢A ⎢≥ 2); dual as prototype
(ii) double thematic role of all participants
(iii) symmetry expressed by predicate (different degrees of saturation)
(iv) the relevant sentences express a joint action or plurality of events depending on the
lexical meaning of the predicate and on the strategy chosen;
- crucial questions
(v) vague meaning; disambiguation through aktionsart, world-knowledge or univocal
meaning (Dalrymple et al. 1998)?
(vi) similar compositional techniques for totally different strategies (Heim et al. 1991)?
- further properties suggested by formal coding:
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centrality of symmetry relations: source of reciprocal markers (‘meet’, ‘exchange’,
‘comrade’, ‘friend’);
symmetric predicates exhibit minimal marking;
no evaluative component;
centrality of the dual situation (two reciprocants): special coding devices in a variety
of languages (no semantic vagueness)
chaining may have separate coding, but is generally expressed by major strategies
degree of saturation (strength) may be specifically encoded (quantification)
linguistic concepts are more abstract
centrality of simultaneity (Haas, 2007: “A reciprocal sentence expresses the strongest
possible meaning which – for the situation expressed – may hold at a single point in
time.”)
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Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin
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symmetric states, including local ones (face to face, side by side, hand in hand, etc.)
as well as other trivial cases (They are the same age/height. They are
similar/different/parallel…) are also subsumed by a notion that takes symmetry and
simultaneity as central
biological, social and cultural concepts discussed above are important points of
orientation and provide an important basis for the definition of a proto-type as well as
for a richer semantic description over and above mere symmetry and mutuality;
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3.
30 November- 2 December, 2007
Types of reciprocal constructions: an overview
- A first distinction: mono-clausal vs. multi-clausal strategies
strategies for encoding reciprocity (specialized recip. constructions)
multi-clausal strategies
mono-clausal strategies
adverbial predicational/verbal argumental/nominal
Fig. 1
- Subtypes of multi-clausal strategies
multi-clausal reciprocals
bi-clausal(a)
fused predicates
verb compounding symmetric signing(e)
fused contrastive subj.(f)
with symmetric predicates(c) repeated predicate(d)
Fig. 2
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Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin
30 November- 2 December, 2007
Mono-clausal reciprocals
Single clause
argument-marking strategy
predicate-marking
bi-partite quantifier(g) nominal (h) pronoun
adverbial(p)
affix(l) auxiliary(m) lexical(n)
suffix prefix circumfix
free(i)
bound
clitic(j) affix(k)
Fig. 3
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How can we assign the enormous variety of cross-linguistic data to these different
types?
How many types should we distinguish?
How (i.e. in terms of which types are implicational generalizations to be stated?
References
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Reciprocals Cross-linguistically
Freie Universität Berlin
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