Abstract:

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the syntax and semantics of a single linguistic phenomenon – the NP-strategy for expressing reciprocity – in synchronic, diachronic, and typological perspectives. It challenges the assumption common in the typological, syntactic, and semantic literature, namely that so-called reciprocal constructions encode symmetric relations. Instead, they are analyzed as constructions encoding unspecified relations. In effect, it provides a new proposal for the truth-conditional semantics of these constructions. More broadly, this book introduces new ways of bringing together historical linguistics and formal semantics, demonstrating how, on the one hand, the inclusion of historical data concerning the sources of reciprocal constructions enriches their synchronic analysis; and how, on the other hand, an analysis of the syntax and the semantics of these constructions serves as a key for understanding their historical origins.

Notes:

This book was awarded the 1st prize of the Polonsky Prizes for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines 2022.

Reviews
Staps, Camil. Review of The NP-strategy for expressing reciprocity: typology, history, syntax and semantics Bibliotheca Orientalis 77 (2020): 318 - 322

Rákosi, György. Review of Bar-Asher Siegal (2020): The NP-strategy for Expressing Reciprocity: Typology, History, Syntax and Semantics, Journal of Historical Linguistics, 8 pages (Available online: 06 February 2023) https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.22017.rak