Barry Schein
University of Southern California
Linguistics Department

Maryland Linguistics Colloquium

Friday, December 14, 2001)
2pm
Room 1304, Marie Mount Hall
University of Maryland, College Park


Adverbial, Descriptive Reciprocals

The reciprocal construction is an adverbial clause (v. 'each to the other(s)', 'the one to the other(s)') within which 'each other' is resolved as two quantifiers, a distributive 'each of them' and a definite description 'those other than them' or 'those other than that'. Variation in the meaning of reciprocal constructions derives from pragmatic conditions on adverbial modification, the resolution of the descriptive anaphora restricting the reciprocal's quantifiers, and the intention to describe one of many events. The reciprocal presents itself without any further structural or lexical ambiguity.


If you are interested in meeting with the speaker, please contact Nina Kazanina or Scott Fults.



To go back to the Colloquium schedule, click here.