Derived lexical reciprocal verbs in Czech
Derived lexical reciprocal verbs in Czech

Summary/Abstract: In Czech (as in other Slavic languages), clitic reflexives serve - among others - as a derivational means of deriving lexical reciprocal verbs, i.e., the verbs that encode mutuality directly in their lexical meaning. Here I draw a line between those lexical reciprocal verbs with which the reflexives introduce mutuality (nenávidět se ‘to hate each other’ ←nenávidět ‘to hate sb’ and slíbit si ‘to promise sth to each other’ ←slíbit ‘to promise sth to sb’) and those with which the reflexives have another function (oddělit se ‘to separate from each other’ ←oddělit ‘to separate sb/sth from sb/sth’). It will be shown that lexical reciprocal verbs of the former type form without exception the so-called discontinuous constructions with the nominative subject and the commitative indirect object (Petr si slíbil s Marií věrnost. ‘Peter and Mary promised fidelity to each other.’), and that they fall into several semantic classes, which, however, semantically overlap to a great extent with lexical reciprocal verbs of other types.

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