passive/causative homonymy

Silvia Luraghi luraghi at UNIPV.IT
Fri Sep 16 20:26:04 UTC 2011 

Dear Wolfgang,
the Italian causative with 'fare' works in very 
much the same way as the Turkish causative 
described by Geoffrey. Look at the following sentence regarding a soccer match:

ha      commesso un errore incredibile:     si 
e'       fatto rubare         la   palla e     la Germania ha pareggiato.
he-has committed a mistake terrible        refl 
he-is made steale(INF) the ball  and the Germany has drawn
"he did a terrible mistake: he had the ball taken 
away and Germany drew the match"

The two Manchu sentences you quote would sound like this in Italian

'On that day my eight horses were stolen (by 
bandits).' = Quel giorno mi (refl.1sg) sono fatto 
(caus) rubare otto cavalli (dai banditi)

'I let the horse drink (water).' = Ho fatto (caus) bere il cavallo'.
(auxiliary change depends on the occurrence/non occurrence of a reflexive)

Note further that the reflexive particles 'si' 
and 'mi in the Italian sentences are also used in 
external possession constructions.

Best wishes
Silvia

At 16.13 16/09/2011, you wrote:

>Dear Wolfgang,
>
>It may be worth looking  a little more closely 
>the semantics of the ‘causatives’ you are 
>investigating. Some causatives are open to a 
>‘let, allow’ interpretation, while others 
>only permit the cause/coercion interpretation. 
>In the former case, “causers” can end up 
>looking rather ‘unagentive’, and the 
>distance to a passive may not be as far as it would appear at first glance.
>
>Â Turkish is a case in point: the causative 
>morpheme (with various allomorphs, some 
>irregular) is open to both ‘cause’, but also 
>to ‘let happen, be unable to prevent’ 
>readings. Thus the causative verb kaç-ır-mak 
>(go away-caus-inf) can mean both ‘kidnap, 
>abduct (a person)’, or ‘miss (an opportunity, a train etc.)’.
>
>The following example (from Göksel and 
>Kerslake’s grammar (p.147), I have added 
>glosses) is quite similar semantically to your 
>passive example with the ‘bandits’:
>
>Â
>Sule el-i-ni makina-ya kap-tır-dı
>Shule hand-poss3s-acc maschine-dat catch-caus-pst(3s)
>
>'Shule got her hand caught in the machine'
>
>Â Of course here, the possessor of the affected 
>entity here winds up as the subject, while in 
>your passive example it’s a genitive 
>attribute. But the semantic overlaps seem worthy of following up.
>
>Best wishes
>Geoff
>
>Am 16.09.2011 13:24, schrieb Wolfgang Schulze:
>>Dear friends,
>>I'm currently working on instances of 
>>passive/causative homonymy. Let me just give 
>>two examples from Manchu (Tungus) to illustrate the problem:
>>
>>Passive:
>>tere         inenggi         mi-ni 
>>           jakûn     morin                hûlha-bu-fi
>>that         day             
>>  1SG-GEN     eight      horse:NOM      steal-PASS-PFV:CNV
>>'On that day my eight horses were stolen (by bandits).'
>>
>>Causative:
>>bi                morin    be        ule-bu-me
>>1SG:NOM   horse    ACC     drink-CAUS-IPFV:CNV
>>'I let the horse drink (water).'
>>
>>For -bu- marking the causative we might think 
>>of the verb bu- 'give' as a potential source of 
>>grammaticalization. However, it is far from 
>>being clear whether the same -bu- is present in 
>>the passive form.  Usually, -bu- is said to 
>>represent a homonymous pair, not an instance of 
>>polysemy. However note that in some other 
>>Tungus languages, the formal merger of passive 
>>and causative may show up, too (apart from 
>>another, specialized passive morpheme). Similar 
>>instances occur in Korean (e.g.  cap-hita 
>>'let/have catch, be caught', mul-lita 'have/let 
>>bite, be bitten' etc.). Again, grammars 
>>normally speak of secondary homonymy due to 
>>specific sound processes. Nevertheless, I'm not 
>>sure whether the parallel between (Southern) 
>>Tungus and Korean is mere coincidence (given 
>>the fact that the languages at issue are spoken 
>>in relative neighborhood). However, before 
>>trying to provide an explanation based on the 
>>assumption of the presence of polysemy (that 
>>would be rather complex in nature - I do not 
>>want to bother you with this here), I would be 
>>eager to learn whether there are other 
>>languages that exhibit the same type of 
>>homonymy, that is a single (!) strategy 
>>(morphological or analytic) to encode passives 
>>and causatives. Likewise, I'm totally ignorant 
>>whether this phenomenon has already been 
>>discussed in the literature (my fault, I 
>>admit!). So, I would be extremely thankful, if 
>>you could tell me about helpful references and 
>>whether there are other languages  that show 
>>analogous strategies. Maybe Estonian is another 
>>candidate,  cf. soovi-ta 'be wished' ~ '*have 
>>something being wished' ~ '*have s.o. wish' > 
>>'recommend', but I'm not sure whether I have got these data right.Â
>>
>>Very best wishes,
>>WolfgangÂ
>>
>>--
>>
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>Silvia Luraghi
>Dipartimento di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata
>Università di Pavia
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>http://lettere.unipv.it/diplinguistica/docenti.php?&id=68 
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