Chapter 14. Zapotec reciprocals

Reciprocal constructions may be seen as involving a valence change, since they include transitive verbs but do not have distinct subject and object participatns. Zapotec reciprocal constructions are sometimes transitive (with free reciprocal anaphors, often related to an independent word meaning ‘fellow’ or ‘relative’) and sometimes intranstive (with the reciprocal anaphor bound or incorporated). A third Zapotec reciprocal construction uses the typologically rare Covert Subject construction. This paper surveys reciprocal constructions in 13 Zapotec languages, several of which use more than one of these constructions.