Who's kissing and how?

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 7/17/08 8:44:45 PM, marcjvelasco at GMAIL.COM writes:


> Has this been studied before with different (not as explicit) verbs?
>

Well, "kiss" would be an analogous case, without the insertion confusion--or
at least one that could be instructive to look at. (Also, it is less likely to
be embarrassing if my grandchildren do a Google search for my name and
stumble across this thread.)

Chris kissed Lee tenderly.
Lee kissed Chris tenderly.
Chris and Lee kissed tenderly.
Chris liked to kiss Lee.
Lee liked to kiss Chris.

You can complicate this with insertion if you change the verb to "French
kissed."

The unconjoined subject seems in each case to be the agent and the object is
the patient. But agency is unspecified if the arguments are conjoined; the
action is reciprocal. Is FUCK any different? One difference is that kissing has
limited instrumental possibilities (the somewhat redundant "Lee
butterfly-kissed Chris with her eyelashes"). Otherwise, it seems to me that the only
difference may be that there are different real-world assumptions (to some extent
generationally based) about the rules of sexual interaction.


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