School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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Author: Nordlinger, Rachel × End date: 2007 × Start date: 2007 ×

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    Reciprocal Constructions in English: each other and beyond
    HURST, PETER ; NORDLINGER, RACHEL ( 2007)
    In this paper we investigate the constructions that are used to encode reciprocal situations in English, based on responses to the 64 reciprocals videoclips developed for the Reciprocals Across Languages project (Evans, Levinson, Enfield, Gaby and Majid 2004). This work complements the extensive body of previous research on English reciprocals by focusing on spoken data. While our data supports the traditional view of each other as the primary and most common reciprocal construction in English, we find a greater degree of variation in construction types than this traditional view might suggest. Furthermore, we show that each other does not have the same degree of acceptability with all reciprocal situation types.
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    Valency mismatches and the coding of reciprocity in Australian languages
    EVANS, N ; Gaby, ; NORDLINGER, R (Walter de Gruyter, 2007)
    Reciprocals are characterized by a crossover of thematic roles within a single clause. So, in John and Mary wash each other, each of John and Mary is both washer and washed, both agent and patient. The competing pressures to distinguish and merge the reciprocating argument(s) are resolved by different languages in complex and illuminating ways which often create special argument configurations not found in other clause types. While some languages either encode reciprocals by clearly bivalent, transitive clauses (like Warlpiri or English), or clearly monovalent, intransitive clauses (like Wambaya or Yukulta), other languages adopt a mixed or apparently ambivalent solution.In this paper, based on an extensive sample of Australian languages, we develop a typology of apparent valency/transitivity mismatches in reciprocal constructions including: (a) monovalent clauses with a single ergative NP; (b) mismatches between case marking and the number of arguments encoded on auxiliaries or by pronominal affixes to the verb; (c) the use of ergative marking on secondary predicates and instrumentals with a nominative subject; and (d) complex clause constructions sensitive to valency. Such mismatches, we argue, result from an ‘overlay problem’ by which both divalent and monovalent predicates in the semantic representation of prototypical reciprocal scenes have had a hand in shaping the morphosyntax of reciprocal constructions through grammaticalization.
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    Verbless Clauses: Revealing the Structure within
    NORDLINGER, R ; Sadler, ; Zaenen, ; Simpson, ; King, H ; Grimshaw, ; Maling, ; Manning, (CSLI Publications, 2007)
    Although very frequent in their occurence across the world's languages, verbless constructions have received relatively little attention in the LFG literature (notable exceptions being Rosén (1996) and a brief discussion in Falk (2004)). In this paper we seek to redress this gap by providing a detailed analysis of verbless constructions in LFG. In particular, we show that the flexibility of the architecture of LFG allows for two possible analyses of these clause types, which we term the 'single-tier' and 'double-tier' analyses. Examination of the morphosyntactic properties of verbless clauses cross-linguistically provide support for these two different models of verbless constructions.