“Reciprocity”
An NSM approach to linguistic typology and social universals
Anna Wierzbicka | Australian National University
This paper develops a semantic approach to the study of “reciprocity” — an area increasingly seen as central to linguistic typology. “Reciprocal” and “reflexive-reciprocal” constructions from five languages — English, Russian, Polish, French and Japanese — are analyzed in considerable detail. The different, though interrelated, meanings of these constructions are explicated, and the proposed explications are supported with linguistic evidence. The paper challenges current approaches which tend to lump formally and semantically distinct constructions under one arbitrary label such as “RECIP”, and it seeks to show how linguistic typology can be transformed by joining forces with rigorous cross-linguistic semantics. It also challenges the Nijmegen School approach, which privileges extensionalist “video-clipping” over conceptual analysis. The analysis presented in the paper demonstrates the descriptive and explanatory power of the NSM methodology. The results achieved through semantic analysis are shown to be convergent with hypotheses about “shared intentionality” put forward by Michael Tomasello and colleagues in the context of evolutionary psychology, and to throw new light on social universals (“human sociality”).
Published online: 19 January 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.33.1.05wie
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.33.1.05wie
Cited by
Cited by 8 other publications
No author info given
Bar-Asher Siegal, Elitzur A.
Goddard, Cliff
Goddard, Cliff, Ulla Vanhatalo, Amie A. Hane & Martha G. Welch
Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka
Peeters, Bert & Margo Lecompte-Van Poucke
Priestley, Carol
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.