Abstract

The linguistic notion of empathy indicates the ability of speakers to identify themselves, to a greater or lesser extent, with interlocutors or with a person/ thing referred to in the utterance. Hence, in this case empathy does not indicate the speaker’s sympathy towards other people, but rather the point of view(s) he/she adopts. The studies of Susumu Kuno and Etsuko Kaburaki on some modern languages, published in 1977 and 1987, have shown how empathy directly affects syntax. The present paper aims to apply the notion of empathy to a specific class of BH verbs, namely the reciprocal verbs pg‘ and pg¨ meaning «to meet».