Alternations: From Lexicon to Grammar And Back Again

An excellent example of a phenomenon bridging a lexicon and a grammar is provided by grammaticalized alternations (e.g., passivization, reflexivity, and reciprocity): these alternations represent productive grammatical processes which are, however, lexically determined. While grammaticalized alternations keep lexical meaning of verbs unchanged, they are usually characterized by various changes in their morphosyntactic structure. In this contribution, we demonstrate on the example of reciprocity and its representation in the valency lexicon of Czech verbs, VALLEX how a linguistic description of complex (and still systemic) changes characteristic of grammaticalized alternations can benefit from an integration of grammatical rules into a valency lexicon. In contrast to other types of grammaticalized alternations, reciprocity in Czech has received relatively little attention although it closely interacts with various linguistic phenomena (e.g., with light verbs, diatheses, and reflexivity).