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Reciprocity in Language:
Cultural Concepts
and Patterns of Encoding
Ekkehard König
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Reciprocity in Language:
Cultural Concepts
and Patterns of Encoding
Reciprocity lies at the root of social organization and has preoccupied scholars of
many disciplines. Biologists have identified a behavioural pattern called
“reciprocal altruism” among animals (cf. Trivers 1971). It may benefit an animal to
behave altruistically towards another if there is an expectation of the favour being
returned in the future. The cost of behaving altruistically to the animal is offset by
the likelihood of this return benefit, permitting the behaviour to evolve by natural
selection. For reciprocal altruism to work it is necessary that individuals should
interact with each other more than once, and have the ability to recognize other
individuals with whom they have interacted in the past. This behavioural pattern
presupposes a certain cognitive development, the ability to recognize specific
individuals of the same species and the expectation of future encounters. While
altruism among animals can ultimately be regarded as disguised self-interest,
philosophers and sociologists have emphasized the role of reciprocity in the
creation, strengthening and maintaining of social relations among humans,
beyond the mere exchange of useful goods. Hobbes (Leviathan, 14) sees
reciprocity as a prerequisite for ending a “condition of war of every one against
every one”. “Whensoever a man transferreth his right [of nature], or renounceth it;
it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself; or for
some other good he hopeth for thereby.” The economist Alexander Field (2001)
even argued that reciprocity originates in the evolution of “pure altruism” among
humans. According to his view, humans are genetically predisposed to act
unambiguously altruistic. Here, mutuality is only a by-product of an evolutionary
development. Marcel Mauss’ book Essai sur le don offers an anthropological
account of rituals of exchange in a number of communities, illustrating the
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relationship between the gift and the exchange and their role in providing the
foundation for a variety of religious, economic and legal phenomena in archaic
societies. In the intricate systems of exchange described by Mauss, community is
founded on a ritualized recognition of interdependence. Mauss shows that the gift
is only one element in a system of a mutual bestowing of benefits, which is at the
same time free and subject to constraints.
A number of famous responses to Mauss’ seminal work have used the social and
ethical complexities of gift-giving to challenge the market rhetoric and exchange
theory found in Mauss’ account and social theories based on his work. Derrida is
particularly well-known for criticizing Mauss’ view that gifts combine generosity
with self-interest and are thus essentially ambiguous. According to Derrida there
is a fundamental paradox in the nature of the gift: It must never appear as such.
The gift is annulled as soon as there is some kind of reciprocity involved. Others,
by contrast, have taken Mauss’ idea much further and emphasized the role of
reciprocity as an essential element of human nature. As H.S. Becker once said,
“Man becomes human in reciprocity. Current work in anthropology and sociology
distinguishes four manifestations of reciprocity: (a) direct (genuine) reciprocity,
where the donor is also in the role of recipient at a later time (b) generalized
reciprocity, where the concept is transferred to a group and where the group as a
whole returns a service obtained from another one at an earlier time (solidarity),
(c) reciprocity of roles and (d) reciprocity of perspectives. Questions concerning
admissible gifts and inadmissible gifts (holy objects, objects leading to
corruption) also figure prominently in these discussions. In biology a frequent
distinction is the one between direct and indirect reciprocity depending on
whether the donor receives the same type of service at a later time as well or
whether his altruistic behaviour merely leads to an increase in reputation
(“symbolic capital” in Bourdieu’s terminology), which may also lead to future
rewards. Moreover, it has been shown that birth order may correlate with
cooperative and altruistic behaviour. A second-born child tends to be more
altruistic than a first-born.
In discussions of ethical principles reciprocity may also be accorded a
fundamental role. When Confucius was asked whether any single word could
summarize all other ethical principles he suggested that ‘reciprocity’ might be
such a word. Christian ethics, by contrast, see reciprocity as a manifestation of the
more fundamental principle ‘love’ (“Whatsoever you require that others should do
to you, that do ye to them.”). The relationship between the concepts ‘love’ and
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‘reciprocity’ is the subject of Sartre’s well-known discussion in L’Être et le Néant.
Sartre claims that there is a fundamental incompatibility between these two
concepts. (“L'amour ainsi exigé de l'autre ne saurait rien demander: il est pur
engagement sans réciprocité”). Finally, I would like to mention that recent
discussions of the evolution of social intelligence and of language itself also place
reciprocity at centre stage (cf. Ellis & Bjorklund 2005).
Even though the concept of reciprocity has not always received the attention it
deserves in the social sciences, there is now a rich literature on that concept as
well a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue between fields as diverse as anthropology,
sociology, economics, law, philosophy and literary theory. My personal knowledge
of these contributions and discussions is very limited, but I noticed that linguists
are notably absent from this dialogue. Social reasoning about reciprocity, however,
is underpinned by the interpretations and ambiguities that one’s language allows.
Languages differ both in the interpretation they allow for such expressions as
Dutch elkaar or mekaar and in the way the cultures they are spoken in favour the
development of particular meanings (Evans 2005).
My paper will examine how languages express this crucial conceptual domain,
drawing on materials from a rich sample of languages. In doing so, I will also have
the opportunity to discuss some basic questions of language and linguistics,
especially of comparative linguistics and language typology, quite in the spirit of
that famous colleague who has given his name to this series of lectures.
1. ‘Reciprocity’ in linguistics: Meaning and forms of encoding
In turning from biology, the social sciences and philosophy (ethics) to linguistics
one is struck by the fact that the term ‘reciprocity’ is used not only for positive
interactions centring around the prototypes ‘sharing’, ‘exchange’, ‘the gift’,
‘hospitality’, ‘cooperation’ or ‘mutual knowledge’, but for all kinds of symmetric
relations and interactions. Instead of taking sentences like (1) as a starting point,
we could also start from sentences like (2) and then include all other uses of
expressions like each other/one another in English or elkaar/mekaar in Dutch,
such as the ones in (3-6):
(1) Inhabitants of this village help each other.
(2) Paul and Mary hate/ruined each other. (simultaneous/sequential)
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(3) People in this house know each other. (strong)
(4) Inhabitants of these islands used to eat each other. (generalized)
(5) Many people at the party are married to each other. (pairwise reciprocal)
(6) The boxes were stacked on top of each other. (chaining)
Thus typical reciprocal constructions are constructions with transitive (bi-valent)
verbs whose subjects typically denote two and perhaps more participants
involved in two (thematic) roles in a fully symmetric situation, that of the Agent
and that of the Patient, that of the donor and that of the recipient, etc.. Such
constructions can often be paraphrased by a coordination of one or more
sentences with inverted arguments, especially when two participants are
involved. Depending on the type of predicate of the sentence, the situations
described may be simultaneous (People in this house know each other) or
sequential (The two kids chased each other through the garden), relate to ordered
or unordered sets of participants (Four kids sat alongside each other vs. (1)) and
express direct (In my family we give each other birthday presents.) or generalized
reciprocity (Immigrants from Turkey help each other) (cf. Dalrymple et al. 1998).
The examples in (1) – (6) give us an idea of the full spectrum of reciprocal
constructions in a modern language. The prototype and presumable origin of
these constructions, however, is much more restricted in its form and possible
interpretation: It is a construction with symmetric predicates and two participants
expressing complete symmetry, as the following example from French
(7) Ils se sont rencontrés à la gare.
The different sequential, chaining, and generalized interpretations illustrated by
the examples given in (1) – (6) are extensions of a basic use, which developed later
and are typically encoded by different formal markers.
2. Special properties of reciprocal constructions
Reciprocal constructions differ widely, though not without limits, across
languages and a high degree of variation may also be found in the history of
individual languages. Compared to related constructions, such as reflexives, they
are furthermore characterized by the following special properties:
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(i) Reciprocal constructions are only possible with a plurality of participants. This
is nicely shown by the famous slogan of Philipp Geluk’s cartoon figure Le Chat:
(8) Je m’aime beaucoup et réciproquement.
Moreover, they are not compatible with predicates that exclude a symmetric
interpretation such as ‘defeat’ or ‘talk at’ (German sprechen zu):
(9) ?The two generals defeated each other.
(ii) Reciprocity can be expressed through discourse, i.e. by a coordination of two
propositions with inverted arguments (John adores Mary and she adores him.).
Some linguists have therefore expressed surprise at the fact that there should be
grammatical means for expressing reciprocity in nearly all languages. As is shown
by our example, however, a paraphrase in terms of a coordinate structure is
always possible for cases with two participants, but may be impossible for cases
with a higher cardinality. As soon as one notes that reciprocal constructions may
express much more than just fully symmetric situations (cf. (4)-(6)), which cannot
be paraphrased by coordinations, there is no puzzle any longer.
(iii) In all languages there are predicates expressing symmetry (or ‘natural
reciprocal situations’) among all the major word classes (verbs: ‘meet’, ‘resemble’,
‘adjoin, ‘exchange’; nouns: ‘friend’, ‘countryman’; adjectives: ‘similar’, ‘parallel’;
prepositions: ‘opposite’, ‘with’). In contrast to other predicates, these may express
symmetry and thus reciprocity even with singular subjects and without any
reciprocal markers.
(10) a. John met Mary at the station. = Mary met John at the station.
b. = John and Mary met.
Note, however, that there are still slight asymmetries in such sentences in terms
of control, initiative, motion, standard, perspective, etc., which are not found in
reciprocal constructions. Complete symmetry is rarely expressed by structures
other than reciprocal ones.
(11) a. John divorced Mary. ≠ Mary divorced John.
b. I agree with Bill. ≠ Bill agrees with me.
c. My daughter resembles Shakira. ≠ Shakira resembles my daughter.
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Symmetric predicates such as the ones mentioned above play a special role in
reciprocal constructions in all languages. In those languages where we have text
documents of a certain historical depth there is good evidence for the view that
the first constructions that could be called ‘reciprocal’ employ symmetric
predicates. These predicates are also a major source for the development of
reciprocal markers. Moreover, reciprocal constructions with symmetric predicates
manifest special properties in a wide variety of languages. In English, for example,
these are the only verbs that allow a reciprocal interpretation for sentences with
a plural subject and an empty object position:
(11) d. They met/dated/danced/embraced/kissed/agreed/married/quarrelled/
split up/divorced.
(iv) The participants involved in a reciprocal situation play two roles in the relevant
situations, e.g. that of Agent and that of Patient, i.e. as the one who provides help
and as the one who receives help in (1). The symmetry of these situations is
expressed by the fact that the participants are all encoded either as subjects or as
objects, rather than partly as subjects and partly as objects as in ordinary
transitive sentences. The object position is typically filled by a reciprocal marker
such as each other as in (1-6) or left empty as in (10b).
(v) The overall meaning of a specific reciprocal sentence depends strongly on the
rest of the sentence. With predicates denoting states the relevant sentences
express fully symmetric situations (These two hate each other.), whereas eventdenoting predicates are more compatible in their interpretation with a delay
between the two relevant events (They help each other.). Let me note at this point
that in Mauss’ narrative of the gift there was always a significant delay between
the giving and the receiving of a gift. Clearly asymmetric predicates like ‘follow’
or ‘chase’ as well as asymmetric spatial or temporal predicates give rise to
chaining effects (The parachutists left the plane one after the other.). Generic,
non-referential subjects are at the basis of interpretations as generalized
reciprocity (Immigrants help each other.).
3. Reciprocals and related constructions
Reciprocal constructions are closely related in their meaning to a variety of other
constructions, especially to reflexive constructions, iterative and sociative
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constructions. One of the argument positions in reciprocals (typically an object) is
either left empty (12b) or filled by an expression like each other that indicates that
the referents under consideration are exactly the same as the ones denoted by the
subject. In an example like (12) the set of admirers and those who receive
admiration are exactly the same. In other words, the professors in question belong
to a mutual admiration society:
(12) The professors of this institute admire each other.
This co-reference between subject and object is also found in reflexive
constructions, where again the object indicates that its interpretation is
dependent on that of the subject. The following sentence speaks of self-admirers:
(13) The professors of this institute admire themselves.
In contrast to reciprocals, reflexives do not express a symmetric relationship or
event, as is indicated by the following notation:
(14) a. A
A (reflexive)
b. A ↔ B (reciprocal)
Given the semantic similarity just mentioned, it should not come as a surprise that
reflexives and reciprocals have the same form in a wide variety of languages. The
so-called reflexive pronouns of Romance languages (Italian si, French se, Spanish
se), of German (sich) and of some Slavic languages allow both a reflexive and a
reciprocal interpretation in many cases. Cross-linguistic surveys have shown that
one out of three languages use the same formal means for both reflexivity and
reciprocity. Differentiation between the two possible interpretations is typically
achieved by number marking (cf. 15), by the addition of specific adverbials which
exclude a reflexive interpretation (16) and by inherent properties of verbs (cf. 17):
reciprocal interpretations require a plurality of participants, adverbs like German
gegenseitig ‘mutually’ exclude a reflexive interpretation and there are certain
(other-directed) verbs that strongly suggest a reciprocal interpretation, whereas
other (i.e. self-directed) verbs strongly favour a reflexive one:
(15) a. Les professeurs de l’institut s’admirent. (reciprocal or reflexive)
b. Le professeur s’admire. (reflexive)
(16) Les professeurs s’admirent mutuellement. (reciprocal)
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(17) a. Die Professoren des Instituts meiden/duzen sich. ‘Professors of this
institute avoid/(tutoient) each other.’ (reciprocal)
b. Die Kandidaten haben sich gut auf das Examen vorbereitet. (reflexive)
‘The candidates prepared (themselves) well for the exam.’
Moreover a stressed “reflexive pronoun” as well as certain syntactic contexts may
exclude a reciprocal interpretation. This suggests that the relevant constructions
are intransitive, rather than transitive:
(18) a. (GERMAN) SICH (SELBST) haben die Spieler vor allem gelobt. (only
reflexive) ‘The players praised themselves.’
b. (SPANISH) Juan y Pedro compraron regalos para sí. (only reflexive)
‘John and Peter bought gifts for themselves.’
c. (FRENCH) Ils se font confiance. (reciprocal)
d.
Ils ont confiance en eux. (reflexive but not reciprocal)
Apart from reflexives, reciprocal constructions are also closely related to sociative
constructions (John and Mary worked/lived/played together). In Austronesian
languages, in particular, (intransitive) sociative constructions and reciprocal
constructions often take the same form. Sociative constructions like (19) involve
a plurality of participants and express a unitary, joint activity. As stated above,
these are also some of the implications of reciprocal constructions. Some of the
earlier reciprocal constructions documented in the history of English are basically
sociative constructions with symmetric predicates:
(19) a. Then they consulted together on the safest mode. (Dickens, Nicholas
Nickelby)
b. They kissed to gyder. (Malory, Morte D’Arthur)
4. Types of reciprocal constructions
Contrary to appearances, languages do not differ from one another in random and
unpredictable ways. Today all linguists, whatever their basic theoretical
persuasions and alliances may be, are convinced that there is some unity in
diversity. There is overwhelming evidence for the view that there are patterns and
limits of variation (language universals). Such disagreement as is found concerns
questions like the following: (a) Which form do these universals take? (b) What are
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suitable methods of investigating and describing them? (c) Are they part of our
biological endowment? (d) How can we explain such universal properties or, more
generally, what is the explanandum and the explanans in the first place? I will
refrain from going into any of these controversies and simply assume that the
universals of language are primarily found not in formal structures per se, but in
symbolic structure i.e. in general principles of mapping between linguistic
function and linguistic form. In other words, I will now briefly illustrate the
programme of language typology, i.e. the programme of describing the patterns
and limits of variation in the domain under discussion. The following typology of
reciprocal constructions is based on Nedjalkov (to appear), Evans (2005) and my
own work (König & Kokutani, to appear).
4.1. A first distinction: Mono-clausal vs. multi-clausal strategies
Multi-clausal reciprocals
Applying this programme to reciprocal constructions, we can first note that we
need to draw a distinction between two basic types of reciprocal constructions
depending on whether they involve one simple sentence (mono-clausal
reciprocals) or two combined clauses, which may, however, exhibit various signs
of reduction and condensation. As pointed out above, reciprocals can often be
paraphrased by coordinations of two clauses with the same predicate and inverted
arguments. More often than not these coordinate structures are not simply
repetitions of the same structure with inverted arguments as in the example from
Cantonese (20), but manifest various additional markers, as is shown by the
examples all taken from English (21):
(20) CANTONESE (Matthews & Yip 1994: 87)
Léih mohng
ngóh, ngóh mohng
I
you,
stare at
you
léih.
stare at me
‘We stare at each other’
(21) a. John loves Mary and she loves him, too.
b. John tends to avoid Bill and vice versa.
c. Madonna loves the British and they love her back.
The following example from Mandarin Chinese is a particularly clear case of a
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coordinate structure that has become grammaticalized, i.e. that has developed
from an iconic to a symbolic construction. Even though this example still contains
a coordination of two clauses with the same predicate and inverted arguments,
the subject of the whole construction is identified at the beginning of the whole
sentence and not by the first and second person pronouns in the clauses that
follow. These pronouns function more like variables and indicate that each
referent denoted by the subject introducing the sentence has to be assigned to
each of the variables (i.e. as both Agent and Recipient) in a semantic
representation like the following:
(22) ∀ x,y ∈ Α (x≠y → help (x,y))
(23) MANDARIN
Tāmen
zo#ngshi
nĭ
bāng-zhù wŏ, wŏ bāng-zhù
nĭ.
They
always
you
help
you
me I
help
‘They always help each other.’
In addition to the examples discussed above we subsume all those cases under
the multi-clausal type of reciprocals which exhibit properties of more than one
clause, such as two predicates, without manifesting all the hallmarks of
coordinations. In the first two examples the main predicate of the sentence has
been combined with a symmetric predicate (‘meet’ in Japanese and ‘be opposite
to’ in Mandarin) to form a regular reciprocal construction. In cases such as these
the type of the event (‘help’) and its symmetric character (‘meet’) is described by
two different verbs combined into one complex expression.
(24) JAPANESE tasukeru ‘help’ > tasuke-au ‘help each other’ (with accusative)
a. Hanako-ga
Hanako-NOM
Taro-o
tasuke-ta.
Taro-ACC
help-PAST
‘Hanako helped Taro.’
b. futari
-wa
tasuke-at-ta.
two.CLASS(person) -TOP help-meet-PAST
‘These two helped each other.’
(25) MANDARIN
Wŏmen duì-kàn.
We
opposite-look
‘We exchange glances.’
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In the following case the combination of two converse predicates (‘come’ – ‘go’)
with the main predicate ‘beat’ expresses reciprocity. The double directionality of
the action ‘beat’ is signalled by two predicates expressing motion into opposite
directions relative to a point of orientation:
(26) MANDARIN
Tāmen dă-lái-dă-qù.
3PL
beat-come-beat-go
‘They beat each other’
A similar, equally wide-spread strategy is reduplication, i.e. the repetition of the
predicate. The first example is from Tok Pisin the official language of Papua New
Guinea and the second from a West African language:
(27) TOK PISIN (Mosel 1980: 108)
(28) GODIÉ/KRU (Marchese 1986: 231)
Tupela i
pait-im-pait-im.
wa
wà-wà
3DU
hit-TR-hit-TR
They
love-love
PRED
‘They hit each other.’
‘They love each other.’
Mono-clausal reciprocals
The second basic type of reciprocal constructions, which can be further
subdivided into the subtypes distinguished in the diagram, is less iconic, less
transparent in its relationship between meaning and form and more
grammaticalized. In these constructions a plurality of relations or events is
expressed by grammatical markers within one simple clause.
Figure 1
Reciprocal markers
lexical
(adjectival
verbal
nominal
adverbial) affixal clitics pronouns
nouns
quantificational
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(a) adjectival/adverbial
Reciprocal adjectives and adverbs are not strictly speaking grammatical elements,
but are often used to disambiguate a sentence that would otherwise be
ambiguous or lack a reciprocal interpretation. At least in European languages such
adverbs express strict symmetry and do not allow chaining or weak
interpretations. Note that the adverbs in question are very different from the ones
found in reduced coordinate constructions. Adverbs like mutually express the
bidirectionality of a relationship or event, whereas the ones found in reduced
coordinations (vice versa) express the reversal of a relationship. In fact the
existence of these two types of adverbs – also exemplified by the French
examples in (11) lends further support to the distinction between multiclausal and
mono-clausal reciprocal constructions:
(29) MANDARIN
Tāmen hù-xīang daò-qian-le.
They
mutually
apologize-PERF
‘They apologized to each other.’
(30) a. Jean aime Marie et réciproquement.
b. Aidons-nous mutuellement !
(b) affixal
A frequent, highly grammaticalized strategy of reciprocity is the use of a verbal
affix combined with a valence reduction, i.e. an empty object position. In some
languages this strategy is only used for a very limited number of (basically
symmetric) predicates (‘meet’, ‘quarrel’, ‘marry’, ‘embracer’, etc.). In others it is a
highly productive strategy.
(31) SWAHILI (Ashton 1962)
Ali
na
Fatuma
wa-na-
Ali
and
Fatuma
3.Pl-PRES-love-REC-final vowel
pend-an
-a
‘Ali and Fatuma like each other.’
(c) clitics and pronouns
In contrast to the verbal affixes, the nominal reciprocal markers express (i) a
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dependence in the interpretation of an object on that of the subject and (ii) partly
also that the relevant relation or event holds is both directions. Pronominal
markers of reciprocity in the widest sense of the word may be confined to certain
positions relative to the verb and may also lose their independence as
phonological words and thus ‘lean on’ a following verb as in French:
(32) FRENCH
Paul et sa femme ne s’entendent plus du tout.
‘Paul and his wife don’t get along anymore.’
In other cases they take the form of free pronouns, i.e. independent words that
may inflect for various categories, such as in Hausa and Eskimo. More often than
not, the relevant pronominal elements may allow both a reciprocal and a reflexive
interpretation, as in French and in Eskimo.
(33) HAUSA (Newman 2000)
Kù
tàimàki ju#nan-kù
2PL:AUX
help
RECIP-2PL
‘You should help each other.’
(34) ESKIMO (Fortescue 1984: 160ff.)
Immin-nut tuqup-pu-q
SELF.PL-kill-IND-3PL
‘They killed themselves/each other’
A particularly interesting case of a pronominal marker of reciprocity are former
nouns with the original meaning ‘comrade’, ‘neighbour’, ‘mate’, ‘friend’,
companion, etc., as illustrated by Welsh and by the following two examples. Since
these expressions do not have the earlier meaning of a symmetric social relation
any more, they have developed into pure markers of reciprocity. The historical
development of these markers can plausibly be reconstructed for such
constructions along the following lines: The symmetric social relationship
originally denoted by the object is predicated of the set given in the subject, in
other words the sentence implies ‘we are comrades’. The semantic change that led
to the current status of kamarad as a reciprocal marker must also have been based
on an inference like the following: ‘If we are capable of deceiving one of our
comrades we are ipso facto capable of deceiving all the other members of the set,
i.e. each other’.
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(35) SEYCHELLES CREOLE
Nu
a
we
FUT be.capable
kapav
trôp
kamarad ê
deceive REC
zur.
one day
‘One day we will be able to deceive each other.’
(36) CHALCATONGO MIXTEC (Macaulay 1996: 144)
Ni-ká-ku-manì
nnù
tã?ã
CP-PL-INCHO-love face
companion
‘They love each other.’
(d) quantificational (bi-partite quantifiers, demonstratives, ‘alterity’, etc.)
A strategy of encoding reciprocity that is very wide-spread in Europe is the use of
bi-partite quantifiers (‘each’, ‘one’, etc.) and alterity expression (‘the other’).
(37) FINNISH
Matti ja
Liisa
Matti and Liisa
pita-vät
toinen
like-3PL.PRES other
toise-sta-an.
other-ELA-3POSS
‘Matti and Liisa like each other.’
(38) FRENCH
Ils se regardent l’un l’autre. Ils vivent proches l’un de l’autre.
(39) RUSSIAN
Oni
c̆asto vid’at
They often see.3PL
drug drug-a.
one
another-GEN
‘They often see each other.’
(40) ENGLISH
The members of the team were proud of each other.
(41) DUTCH
Jan en Marijke slaan elkaar.
‘Jan and Marijke hit each other.’
It is plausible to reconstruct the historical development of these reciprocal
markers as follows. Starting out as constituents of very different parts of a
sentence, the two quantifiers became juxtaposed and in some languages they
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even were fused into one word:
(42) a. Each of the villagers should help the other.
b. The villagers should each help the other.
c. The villagers should help each other.
The examples given above show that the relevant development must have
occurred in a wide variety of languages. What is also shown by these examples is
that this process of grammaticalization may manifest different stages in different
languages. In Dutch the original components of what is now often called a
reciprocal anaphor are barely recognizable. They still are in English, but here too
these components have fused into one word. In both of these languages, as in
other Germanic languages, the resultant reciprocal markers are invariable. In
Slavic we still find the case marking of the original object and in the Romance
languages the relevant two components are still preceded by the definite articles
and inflect for gender and number.
5. Historical observations
It is generally assumed in historical linguistics nowadays that grammatical
categories develop out of lexical elements as a result of interdependent processes
of change (“grammaticalization”) that affect all levels of linguistic organisation. So
let us now take a look at the genesis and historical development of reciprocal
markers. In so far as we can still reconstruct that development we can say first of
all that reflexive and sociative (collective) markers may extend their use to also
cover the domain of reciprocity. For another major subset of the reciprocal
markers found across languages, there is clear evidence that they develop from
symmetric predicates or, more generally, from symmetric expressions. In
Austronesian languages, in Japanese and Chinese, for example, symmetric verbs
like ‘exchange’, ‘meet’, ‘be opposite’ combine with other predicates in serial verb
constructions to express reciprocity. Reciprocal pronouns often develop out of
symmetric role concepts like ‘fiend’, ‘comrade’, ‘neighbour’, ‘friend’, ‘mate’ and the
symmetric, comitative preposition ‘with’ is frequently found as verbal prefix or
element introducing a prepositional object in reciprocal constructions (cooperate,
collide, se battre avec). Finally the bi-partite quantifier (‘each other’), which is used
as reciprocal marker in nearly all parts of the globe, is also an expression denoting
symmetry. The utterance I am one and you are the other implies an utterance of
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the same type if it is uttered by the hearer of the first token.
As far as the further development of expressions derived from these sources is
concerned, different degrees of grammaticalization within multiclausal strategies
and across nominal strategies can be observed. As pointed out above, originally
bi-clausal reciprocals may manifest varying degrees of reduction and the nominal
strategies exhibit more properties of tight grammatical constructions as we move
from right to left on the diagram in Figure 1. The pronominal clitics of Romance
and South Slavic languages are purely grammatical markers, whereas the lexical
origin (‘comrade’) is still detectable in the nominal markers. The quantificational
markers still allow us to reconstruct their lexical origin with reasonable certainty;
these markers in turn may exhibit different degrees of grammaticalization in
different languages. In Dutch and English we find a high degree of
grammaticalization, whereas Romance and Slavic languages have reached roughly
the stage found in Middle English (Dutch > German/English > Romance > Finnish).
Whether or not such comparisons can be the basis for predictions is a matter of
some debate.
6. Summary and conclusion
What I have tried to do in this talk is to initiate a dialogue between linguistics and
all those fields in the humanities and social sciences which are interested in
concepts of reciprocity and their encoding in the languages of the world. Even
though this talk was more an outline of a research programme than a summary of
well-established facts, the following preliminary results have emerged:
• The concepts of reciprocity used in biology, the social sciences and philosophy
are much narrower than the ones delimited by formal means in natural
languages. The relevant concepts are exclusively positive, social forms of
interaction that centre around prototypes like ‘exchange’, ‘sharing’, ‘the gift’,
‘hospitality’, ‘altruism’, and ‘mutual knowledge’. Moreover, anthropologists and
sociologists have underlined the importance of a temporal delay between the
receiving of a gift and the act of reciprocating and thus the sequential nature of
reciprocity. The prototypical concept of reciprocity as encoded by linguistic
structures, by contrast, is based on two participants, a fully symmetric situation
of any kind and a unitary interaction that cannot be decomposed into two
sequential events going into opposite directions. Furthermore, these linguistic
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concepts of reciprocity completely lack any evaluative component. Symmetric
predicates and concepts seem to have played a decisive role in the historical
development of reciprocal constructions.
• There is, however, also some linguistic support for Mauss’ idea to place the
notions of the gift and of exchange in the centre of the discussion on
reciprocity. It is not so much grammatical structure but lexical structure in IndoEuropean and other languages that points in this direction (Cf. Benveniste,
1966). Exchanges like ‘A gives (sells, lends, rents out, teaches…) something to
B’ can also be described from B’s perspective and are then expressed as follows
‘B receives (buys, borrows, rents, learns…) something from A’. The relevant
pairs of predicates (‘give – take’) are not symmetric, but what is called converse
terms, i.e. different ways of describing the same situation from different
perspectives (‘A teaches something to B = B learns something from A’). Even
though languages may employ two different expressions for these two
perspectives this was not always the case in early stages of the Indo-European
languages and is very often not the case in modern languages. The IndoEuropean root *do- underlies both verbs meaning ‘give’ and verbs meaning
‘take’ in modern European languages and in many cases formally related verbal
forms are used for the two perspectives. German verkaufen and kaufen,
vermieten and mieten are cases in point as is the equivalence of borgen and
leihen. The use of French hôte in the sense of ‘host’ and ‘guest’ is another clear
example.
• More complex concepts of reciprocity like ‘generalized reciprocity’ are also
expressible by the core area of reciprocal constructions, but concepts like
reciprocity of perspective, and indirect reciprocity are not easily expressed in
this way.
• The use of reciprocal markers for temporal or local arrangements (the ‘chaining
use’) is typically encoded by markers that have developed later in the history of
a language. Concepts of this kind play a role in discussions of generalized
reciprocity. Our system of pensions is partly based on such a concept of
generalized reciprocity.
• Constructions specialized for the expression of reciprocity are found in all
languages. The development of such constructions is fed by several sources
and it is probably a reflection of the importance of ‘reciprocity’ for human
interaction and survival that languages typically display several strategies for
encoding reciprocity, which are not necessarily synonymous.
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Abbreviations
ACC
= accusative
Aux
= auxiliary verb
CLASS = classifier
Du
= dual
ELA
= elative
FUT
= future
INCHO = inchoative
IND
= indicative
NOM
= nominative
PAST
= past tense
PERF
= perfective
PL
= plural
POSS
= possessive
Pred
= predicative
RECIP = reciprocal marker
TOP
= topic
Tr
= transitive
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References
Ashton, E.O. (1962). Swahili grammar. 9th ed. London: Longmans.
Benveniste, Emile (1966). “Don et echange dans la vocabulaire indoeuropéen”.
Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Galimard, 315-326.
Bril, Isabelle (2005). “Reciprocal prefixes and middle voice in New Caledonian and
other Austronesian languages”. Linguistic Typology 9, 25-76.
Dalrymple, Mary, Kanazawa, Makoto, Kim, Yookyung, Mchombo, Sam, and Peters,
Stanley (1998). “Reciprocal expressions and the concept of reciprocity”.
Linguistics and Philosophy 21, 159-210.
Ellis, Bruce J. & Bjorklund, David, F. (2005). Origins of the social mind: Evolutionary
psychology and child development. New York: Guilford Press.
Evans, Nick (2005). Reciprocal constructions: toward a structural typology. To
appear in König, E. & Gast, V. (eds.) Reciprocity and Reflexivity: Crosslinguistic explorations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Everaert, Martin (2000). Types of anaphoric expressions: Reflexives and
reciprocals. In: Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Curl, Tracy S. (eds.) Reciprocals: Form
and Function. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 63-83.
Field, Alexander J. (2001). Altruistically Inclined? The Behavioural Sciences,
Evolutionary Theory, and the Origins of Reciprocity. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Fortescue, Michael D. (1984). West Greenlandic. London: Croom Helm.Frajzyngier,
Zygmunt & Curl, Tracy S. (eds.) (2000). Reciprocals: Form and Function.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
König, Ekkehard & KokutanI, Shigehiro (2004). “Towards a typology of reciprocal
constructions: Focus on German and Japanese”. To appear in Linguistics
(2006).
Lichtenberk, Frantisek (2000). Reciprocals without reflexives. In: Frajzyngier,
Zygmunt & Curl, Tracy S. (eds.) Reciprocals: Forms and Function. Amsterdam:
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Macaulay, Monica (1996). A Grammar of Chalcatongo Mixtec. Berkeley: University
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Marchese, Lynell (1986). The pronominal system of Godié. In: Wieseman, U. (ed.)
Pronominal systems. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 217-256.
Matthews, Stephen & Yip, Virginia (1994). Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar.
London: Routledge.
Mauss, Marcel (1923-4) “Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l'échange dans les
sociétés archaïques”. L’Année Sociologique, seconde série, 1923-1924.
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Mosel, Ulrike (1980). Tolai and Tok Pisin: The influence of the substratum on the
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Moyse-Faurie, Claire (2005) “Reciprocal and reflexive constructions in Kanak and
Polynesian languages”. (Ms).
Nedjalkov, Vladimir (ed.) (to appear). Typology of reciprocal constructions. 2 vols.
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Gegenseitigkeit. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.
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About The Author
Ekkehard König, NIAS Fellow in 1984/85, is Professor of English and Linguistics at
the Free University of Berlin. He has taught in Reading (GB), Stuttgart,
Braunschweig, Hanover and Berlin and held Visiting Professorships at the
University of Manchester, at Stanford University and at the University of Southern
California. He was Director of the international (ESF-funded) project “Typology of
Languages in Europe” (1990-94) and received the Max-Planck Research Award for
International Cooperation in 2002. He is a corresponding Member of the Académie
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France.
His main research interests are: language typology and language universals,
semantics, the structure of the Germanic languages, grammaticalization and
lexicography. He has published numerous articles and books and is one of the
editors of the Handbook Language Typology and Language Universals (2001).
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UHLENBECK LECTURES
Uhlenbeck Lectures are organised by the NIAS Fellows Association (NFA) to
honour the founder of the Institute, Dr. E.M. Uhlenbeck, Professor of Linguistics
and Javanese Language and Literature at Leiden University from 1950–1983 and
Chairman of the NIAS Board from 1970-1983.
Previous Uhlenbeck Lectures were:
1.
1983: E.M. Uhlenbeck
Linguistics: Neither Psychology nor Sociology
Published by NIAS, 1983
2.
1984: N. Luhmann
The ‘State’ of the Political System
Published by NIAS, 1984
3.
1985: G. Steiner
Word and Logos
Published as: Woord en Rede. Pleidooi voor
een ethische literatuurbeschouwing
by Goossens, Tricht, 1985
4.
1986: M. Fuhrmann
Die humanistische Bildung des
19. Jahrhunderts und was davon
erhaltenswert gewesen wäre
Unpublished
5.
1987: A.J.F. Köbben
Interests, Partiality and the Scholar
Published by NIAS, 1987
6.
1988: G. Modelski
Is America’s Decline Inevitable?
Published by NIAS, 1988
7.
1989: P.W. Klein
The Monetisation of the Dutch East Indies:
A Case of Changing Continuity, 1602-1942
Published by NIAS, 1989
8.
1990: M. Blaug
The Economic Value of Higher Education
Published by NIAS, 1990
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1991: Esther Cohen
Pagina 25
Gift, Payment and the Sacred in Medieval
Popular Religiosity
Published by NIAS, 1991
10.
1992: P.H. Kooijmans
Maintaining the Peace in the Shadowland
Between the Old and the New International
Order
Published by NIAS, 1992
11.
1993: Wolf Lepenies
Toleration in the New Europe: Three Tales
Published by NIAS, 1993
12.
1994: Kristofer Schipper
The Gene Bank of Culture: Reflections on the
Function of the Humanities
Published by NIAS, 1994
13.
1995: Terence J. Anderson The Battles of Hastings: Four Stories in
Search of a Meaning
Published by NIAS, 1996
14.
1996: Maarten Brands
The Obsolescence of almost all Theories
concerning International Relations
Published by NIAS, 1997
15.
1997: Frits van Oostrom
Medieval Dutch Literature and Netherlandic
Cultural Identity
Published by NIAS, 1998
16.
1998: Fritz Stern
Five Germanies I have known
Published by NIAS, 1998
17.
1999: Dirk J. van de Kaa
The Past of Europe’s Demographic Futur e
Published by NIAS, 1999
18.
2000: Arend Lijphart
Democracy in the Twenty-First Century:
Can We Be Optimistic?
Published by NIAS, 2000
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2001: Çiğdem Kağitçibaşi
Development of Self and Competence in
Cultural Context
Published by NIAS, 2001
20.
2002: Henk Wesseling
The Idea of an Institute for Advanced Study:
Some Reflections on Education, Science
and Art
Published by NIAS, 2002
21.
2003: Christopher Brown
The Renaissance of Museums in Britain
Published by NIAS, 2003
22.
2004: Kees Schuyt
Common Sense Philosophy from Tomas Reid
to Charles Pierce: Its Relevance for Science
and Society Today
In press
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NIAS is an institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. Each
year, the Institute invites around 50 carefully selected scholars, both from within
and outside the Netherlands, to its centre in Wassenaar, where they are given an
opportunity to do research for a ten-month period. Fellows carry out their work
either as individuals or as part of one of the research theme groups, which NIAS
initiates every year. In addition, through its conference facilities, the Institute also
functions as a meeting place for scientific programmes of a shorter duration and
more specific character, such as workshops, seminars, summer schools, and study
centres. NIAS is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW).