a type of causative-applicative polysemy

[Eduardo R. Ribeiro]

Dear Peter,

The "causative-comitative" construction in Tupí-Guaraní languages produces 
similar results (cf. só 'to go' > ero-só 'to make go with oneself, to carry 
away').  A description of this construction in the extinct Tupinambá 
language is provided by Aryon Rodrigues in a 1953 paper, available online at 
http://biblio.etnolinguistica.org/rodrigues-1953-morfologia.  Several 
currently-spoken languages of the same family also present such a 
construction (cf. Françoise Rose's description of Emerillon, also available 
online: http://www.etnolinguistica.org/tese:rose-2003).

Best,

Eduardo

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "peterarkadiev" <peterarkadiev at YANDEX.RU>
To: <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:34 PM
Subject: Q: a type of causative-applicative polysemy


> Dear colleagues,
>
> does anyone know of well-documented and more or less systematic examples 
> of situations where a causative derivation aplied to an agentive 
> intransitive verb like 'walk' would yield a transitive verb like 'carry' 
> (or 'work' -> 'work on something')? I call this an instance of 
> causative-applicative polysemy since the new argument introduced by the 
> derivation is not the Causing Agent but rather a Patient.
>
> I know of 'assistive' causatives like 'dance' -> 'dance with somebody', 
> but here the new argument is not a Patient.
>
> Many thanks in advance.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Peter Arkadiev
> Institute of Slavic Studies
> Russian Academy of Sciences
> Moscow