Conclusion

The author concludes that the syntax and semantics of reciprocals must be derived compositionally. Supporting the claims made by Faller (Journal of Semantics, 255–288, 2007), Yamada (Plurality, Reciprocity, and Plurality of Reciprocity, University of Delaware, 2010), and Hernández (Studia Linguistica, 1–41, 2021), the author argues that reciprocity is a complex construction built upon more primitive operations in a language despite surface variations. It is also argued that discontinuous reciprocals require separate treatment from their canonical counterparts, treating the discontinuous constructions as transitives, following Dimitriadis (Discontinuous Reciprocals, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, 2004). In cases of co-occurrence of nominal and verbal reciprocals, the author argues that nominal reciprocal markers pair-Merge for a collective-distributive distinction. It is shown that nominal markers are barred with symmetric and discontinuous reciprocalization. Regarding binding facts, the author shows that canonical reciprocals with verbal reciprocals only allow for local binding. Meiteilon exhibits long-distance binding with the RECP head if a reflexive pronoun occurs in an embedded clause, while Nyishi does not allow reflexives in such positions, thus not permitting a non-local reading. Both languages show long-distance binding of reciprocals under two conditions: if the embedded clause is non-finite or if an overt nominal reciprocal marker is present in the embedded clause. The book attempts to establish [u-group] as a universal feature F by considering Meiteilon and Nyishi reciprocals based on the morphological evidence presented in this work.