---
title: "Reflexivity, reciprocality and collectivity in Jordanian Arabic (2022)"
description: "The paper asks why verbs carrying the t- prefix in Jordanian Arabic (JA) look alike on the surface but behave differently when they… 6. F1. 39 references."
authors: ["Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba'a", "Yoshihisa Kitagawa"]
year: 2022
venue: "Glossa: a journal of general linguistics"
source: "https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/5799/"
doi: "10.16995/glossa.5799"
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/a-2022-reflexivity-reciprocality-collectivity-jordanian-arabic/"
---
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# Reflexivity, reciprocality and collectivity in Jordanian Arabic

**Authors:** Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba'a and Yoshihisa Kitagawa · **Year:** 2022 · **Venue:** [Glossa: a journal of general linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/) ([Glossa a journal of general linguistics 2022](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/2022/)) · **Publisher:** [Ubiquity Press](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/ubiquity-press/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5799) · [PDF](https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/5799/galley/22302/download) · [DOI 10.16995/glossa.5799](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5799) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4285585078)

**Citations:** 2 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper asks why verbs carrying the t- prefix in Jordanian Arabic (JA) look alike on the surface but behave differently when they express reflexive versus reciprocal meaning. It is a theoretical syntax and semantics study. The data are native-speaker judgments of Rural JA, given by the first author and confirmed by at least four other speakers. The authors find that t-marked reflexives project a single syntactic argument. t-marked reciprocals keep two arguments: the second one surfaces either as a prepositional phrase or as a silent reciprocal element. This finding argues against the valency-reducing "bundling" analysis proposed for Hebrew. The authors then claim that t- does not really mark reciprocity. Instead, it demands collectivity: two sub-events that substantially coincide in time and place, with reciprocal readings arising as a by-product. Finally, they show how t- combines with base verb forms to yield Forms 5, 6 and 8, and why reflexive and collective readings never co-occur. The work matters for modelling Semitic verb templates and argument structure.

## Key points
- The diagnostic test is co-occurrence with an overt anaphor:
  - t-ʕaawanu "helped (each other)" accepts *maʕ baʕð̣-hum l-baʕð̣* ("with each other").
  - t-ʔaddab "behaved (oneself)" rejects *maʕ nafs-uh* ("with himself").
- Reciprocal t-verbs have two possible analyses:
  - an overt PP complement introduced by a nearly meaningless preposition (maʕ "with"), or
  - an empty internal argument, written [e]RECIP.
- The function of t- is redefined as obligatory collectivity. Reciprocity follows from the plural eventuality that t- requires.
- Different base forms activate t- differently:
  - F2 (causative) gives the reflexive Form 5.
  - F3 (unergative/transitive with two animate participants) gives the collective Form 6.
  - F1 transitive or symmetric transitive gives Form 8, which can be either reflexive or collective.
- Reflexivity needs the two participants to share reference, while collectivity needs them to be distinct. The two readings are therefore mutually exclusive. Appendices A–E add cross-dialect and English comparisons.

## Interesting ideas
- An argument's syntactic status can be tested by checking whether an overt filler (such as an anaphor PP) is allowed, which separates truly absent arguments from merely silent ones.
- Reciprocal meaning is treated as a consequence of two overlapping sub-events with distinct participants, rather than as a primitive.
- The same morpheme yields different readings depending on what the base verb supplies (a self-related relation versus a plural event).
- Some prepositions are close to semantically empty and serve only to license an argument, much like "on" in "rely on".
- Two readings are ruled out jointly by one constraint on reference: united versus disjoint participants.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (frames): When filling VerbNet roles, Mova could flag a role as "implicit but present" if the construction licenses an overt filler, and as "absorbed" otherwise, before resolving who acted on whom.
- **I2** (world): Events such as "met" or "hugged" could be stored as two parallel sub-events sharing a time and place, so that later questions about either participant's action can be answered explicitly.
- **I3** (tokens): English morphology (e.g., the alternation in "they kissed" vs. "she kissed him") could be tagged with a conditional reading rule tied to the lemma's verb class, rather than a fixed feature.
- **I4** (frames): Such prepositions could be marked as role-transparent so the PP object maps directly to the verb's internal role instead of producing a separate location or instrument frame.
- **I5** (answer): A reader could use this kind of exclusion to reject candidate interpretations, for example not answering "each other" when coreference already shows a single participant.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [Indiana University Bloomington](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/indiana-university-bloomington/) — University, Bloomington, United States · 18 works · 2,320 citations

Also on the byline: [KIMEP University](https://ror.org/01pk2ck74).

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## Cite

Cite as: Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba'a and Yoshihisa Kitagawa. 2022. Reflexivity, reciprocality and collectivity in Jordanian Arabic. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{alrabaa2022reflexivity,
  title = {{Reflexivity, reciprocality and collectivity in Jordanian Arabic}},
  author = {Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba'a and Yoshihisa Kitagawa},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2022},
  doi = {10.16995/glossa.5799},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5799}
}
```

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39 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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*Updated 24 October 2026*