Certain predicates like “hug” require an overt object when the subject is singular (1a), while being able to surface without an overt object when the subject denotes a plurality (1b). These alternations have been referred to as reciprocal alternations (Levin, 1993; Winter, 2019), and indeed it is tempting to paraphrase the 1-place variant in (1b) with a reciprocal object as in (1c). A straightforward account of this alternation would be to propose that (1b) has a covert reciprocal in object position (Hackl, 2000). A major challenge for this syntactic approach is that the 1-place variant and the overt reciprocal are not always truth-conditionally equivalent. For example, in the context in (2), (1c) is true while (1b) isn’t.
(1) a. Jane hugged Mary.
b. Jane and Mary hugged.
c. Jane and Mary hugged each other.
(2) Context: Jane hugged Mary while Mary was sleeping and then Jane fell asleep and Mary woke up and hugged her.
The goal of this talk will be to (i) propose a covert reciprocal analysis that can account for the truth-conditional differences between overt and covert reciprocals and (ii) provide evidence for a covert reciprocal account and against an alternative lexical account that treats “hug” in (1a) as a 1-place collective predicate (e.g. Winter, 2019). I assume a decompositional analysis of reciprocals, following Heim et al. (1991) and argue that the differences in truth-conditions can be accounted for if we assume that the reciprocal has to be bound as low as possible when it is elided. I provide evidence for my account by arguing that covert reciprocals, just like their overt counterparts, exhibit characteristic properties of non-collective plural predication, as expected by the decompositional approach. Namely, I show that covert reciprocals give rise to homogeneity, non-maximality and cumulative readings, even when the subject denotes an individual of cardinality 2, as in (1b). I argue that these patterns are not predicted by a lexical account that treats hug in (1a) as a collective predicate which directly takes the plurality denoted by “Jane and Mary” as an argument.