passivereciprocal

Passivereciprocal is a linguistic term used to describe a theoretical phenomenon in which reciprocal actions—actions that involve two or more participants who affect each other—are encoded in a passive-voice construction. The concept highlights how reciprocity can be expressed not only through active verbs with each other or one another but also by passivizing the action while maintaining the mutual relation of the participants. The term is not widely standardized and appears mainly in discussions of voice and reciprocity in linguistic theory rather than in everyday usage.

In English, reciprocal actions are usually expressed in the active form with pronouns such as each other or one another, as in “The students helped each other.” A passivereciprocal pattern would recast this as a passive sentence in which the action is received by the participants from one another, as in “The students were helped by one another.” Such constructions are relatively rare in everyday English but can occur in languages with rich passive morphology or in stylistic or formal registers.

Examples help illustrate the idea. Active reciprocal: “The colleagues defended one another.” Passive reciprocal: “The colleagues were defended by one another.” Another example: “The teams congratulated each other.” Passive reciprocal: “The teams were congratulated by one another.”

Notes and variations: because passivereciprocal is not a standard label in most grammars, scholars may describe the same phenomenon using terms like mutual passives, reciprocal passives, or voice alternations. See also reciprocal constructions and passive voice for related topics.