Reflexivity and Reciprocity in Two Arabic Varieties: Evidence for REF-REC Category

Languages vary in expressing reflexivity and reciprocity. In some languages, reflexive and reciprocal constructions are formally identical, while in some other languages, they are distinct. The third group comprises languages that have non-reflexive and reflexive–reciprocal (REF-REC) constructions. This paper investigates marking reflexivity and reciprocity in Standard Arabic and Jordanian Arabic. It demonstrates that these two varieties possess a non-reflexive reciprocal category and a REF-REC category, placing them within the third group. However, these varieties are peculiar in terms of having three possible interpretations of a sentence embedding this category: only reflexive, only reciprocal, and simultaneously both. This peculiar case has been interpreted as a case of sentential vagueness: each of the two markers in the target varieties has a univocal meaning, and the range of possible sentential interpretations arises from contextual clues. From a cross-linguistic perspective, this paper also identifies a novel source of reflexive marking: the nominal ħaal in Jordanian Arabic. This nominal, which primitively means ‘(personal) state’, is the conceptual strategy for reflexivity in this variety.