Emphatic Reciprocal Expressions and Symmetric Verbs in Spanish: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

In this paper we present a descriptive study on the compatibility of emphatic reciprocal expressions with Spanish lexical reciprocal (or symmetric) verbs. Since lexical reciprocal verbs express reciprocity intrinsically, they should not require the use of an emphatic reciprocal expression to denote reciprocal meaning. Some scholars even claim that some emphatic reciprocal expressions, such as mutuamente, are incompatible. The aim of this paper is to describe to what extent symmetric verbs can be used with four of these expressions using an empirical approach. The results obtained shed light to the questions raised: we have been able to verify that these expressions are more frequent with non-reciprocal verbs and we have proved that the combination of symmetric verbs with all these expressions is possible, even in the case of mutuamente.

Keywords

• lexical reciprocal verbs
• symmetric verbs
• emphatic reciprocal expressions
• reciprocity
• corpus