Inherently reciprocal verbs in Brazilian Sign Language

Among various strategies employed by languages to encode reciprocity, there is the use
of lexical reciprocals, which specify this relation inherently to the verb. In this paper, we
analyze verbs that are inherently reciprocal in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and we
show that they have an interesting pattern, regarding hand specification (with all inherently
reciprocal verbs being two-handed) and also movement type (whether characterized
by singular or repeated movement as opposed to alternating movement). We will
argue in favor of a phonology-semantics interface, in such a way that two-handedness is
related to participant mapping and the different types ofmovement mark the difference
between symmetrical and non-symmetrical reciprocals.