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<title>Crackers</title>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'>I would think that “Vater brachte
die Vase zum Zerspringen“ is a perfectly acceptable causative rendering.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'>Best,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'>Thomas Blecke<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> Discussion List
for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Frans Plank<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Dienstag, 24. Juni 2008
11:15<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b>
LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Crackers</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-weight:bold'>Crackers<br>
<br>
<br>
</span></font></b><font color=black face=Times><span style='font-family:Times;
color:black'>Consider the following relationship between a state, a change of
state, and the causation of a change of state.<br>
<br>
STATE<br>
X was in a state of not being whole, being partially fractured though without
the parts completely separate or without the whole completely destroyed<br>
(where X is something, preferably an artefact, of brittle consistency, hard but
breakable, such as vases or window panes made of glass, plates made of
porcelain, earthenware, urns or tablets made of clay, walls made from dried
cow-dung, etc.)<br>
<br>
CHANGE OF STATE<br>
X spontaneously, or at any rate without an animate agent acknowledged as
causally involved, changed from a state of being whole to a state of not being
whole, being partially fractured though without the parts completely separate
or without the whole completely destroyed<br>
<br>
CAUSATION<br>
An animate agent caused a change of state of A from being whole to not being
whole, being partially fractured though without the parts completely separate
or without the whole completely destroyed<br>
<br>
<br>
To exemplify this trias from English.<br>
<br>
STATE</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>The
vase had a crack.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(transitive verb of possession,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>with
[deverbal???] noun as object) </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>The
vase was cracked.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(existential copula,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>stative-resultative
participle of [intransitive, denominal???] verb)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'><br>
CHANGE OF STATE</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>The
vase cracked.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>(same verb as
for causation, used intransitively)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'><br>
CAUSATION</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>Father
cracked the vase.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>(same verb as
for change of state, used transitively)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'><br>
<br>
<br>
And here's closely related German.<br>
<br>
STATE</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>Die
Vase hatte einen Sprung.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(transitive verb of possession,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>with deverbal
noun as object)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>Die
Vase war gesprungen.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>(existential
copula,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>stative-resultative
participle of [intransitive] verb)<br>
<br>
CHANGE OF STATE</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>Die
Vase sprang.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(intransitive verb, a verb of movement,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>literally
designating a sudden spring from the ground)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>Die
Vase bekam einen Sprung.</span><x-tab></font></i><font color=black face=Times><span
style='font-family:Times;color:black'> </x-tab>(inchoative
verb, lit. 'to get',</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><x-tab><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>with deverbal
noun as object)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'><br>
CAUSATION<br>
---<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>
<br>
</x-tab><br>
Remarkably, though a native speaker, I find no way of expressing this
straightforward state of affairs in German, other than in extremely roundabout
ways ('Father was careless and did something to the vase that resulted in its
having a crack', or such). Neither the denominal noun<i><span
style='font-style:italic'> Sprung</span></i> nor some morphological or
syntactic way of causativising the verb<i><span style='font-style:italic'>
springen</span></i> works (there is an old causative,<i><span style='font-style:
italic'> sprengen</span></i>, but that now means 'cause to burst with a loud
nose, explode'):</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>*Vater
brachte der Vase einen Sprung bei.</span></font></i><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black;font-style:italic'>*Vater
sprang die Vase. *Vater ließ die Vase springen.</span></font></i><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>The prefixal derivative<i><span
style='font-style:italic'> zer-springen</span></i> (with<i><span
style='font-style:italic'> zer-</span></i> a completive-destructive prefix)
again is only intransitive and means 'to go to pieces'; and transitive<i><span
style='font-style:italic'> zer-sprengen</span></i> likewise means 'break up
completely'.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>At long last my question:<br>
<br>
Is this gap in German unique? Preliminary enquiries -- though of very
limited crosslinguistic range -- suggest it is not. Is it easy or
difficult or impossible to express the concept 'to cause something to be
cracked' in the language(s) that you speak or know well?</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>I find this gap somewhat worrying, from a
practical as well as a theoretical point of view. I'd assume that brittle
things frequently end up being cracked, in German-speaking lands no less than
in English-speaking ones, and that spontaneous crackings (ice comes to mind
here, as temperature rises) worldwide are overall far less frequent than cracks
caused by the carelessness of human agents. (If there is a difficulty
with 'to cause something to be cracked', it might therefore be to do with the
semantics of transitivity rather than with frequency, a notion often invoked to
account for the differential ease of expressibility of anything thinkable and
sayable and in particular for the directionality of derivations of causatives or
decausatives.)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'><br>
I'd appreciate any feedback.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>(And I'd like to gratefully acknowledge
the unwitting input from Alex Tantos, discussing English<i><span
style='font-style:italic'> crack</span></i> at his thesis defence yesterday, if
from the angle of Discourse Representation Theory and how it accounts for
causation -- a really hard nut to crack.)</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'>frans.plank@uni-konstanz.de</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face=Times><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:black'> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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