The semantics of shared emotion

The paper investigates semantic properties of expressions that suggest the possibility that emotions are shared. An example is the saying that a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. I assume that such expressions on sharing an emotion refer to a specific mode of subjective experience, displayed in first person attributions of the form 'We share E'. Subjective attributions of this form are intrinsically ambiguous on all levels of their semantic elements: 'emotion', 'sharing' and 'We'. One question the paper seeks to answer is whether and in what respect these semantic ambiguities mirror an indeterminacy of emotional experience. Discussing 'aggregate sharing' (of a determinate) in distinction of mere 'distributive sharing' (of a determinable), I argue that there is no sufficient criterion to determine which mode of sharing an emotional experience shaped as 'We feel E' displays. Disambiguation of this intrinsic indeterminacy must recur to situational parameters of individuals' de re relatedness.