Lexical Causatives Through Conversion AND Productive Morphological Causatives

[Thomas E. Payne]

In many Philippine languages many intransitive non-volitional verbs are
causative in a transitive frame with no morphological derivation. Then there
is a productive morphological causative for volitional intransitives, and
transitives. 

 

Would you like references?

 

Tom

 

  _____  

Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 08:53:08 -0400
From: chao.li at AYA.YALE.EDU
Subject: Lexical Causatives Through Conversion AND Productive Morphological
Causatives
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG

Dear Colleagues,

 

I was wondering whether anyone was aware of a language that has not only a
number of (say, at least 10) lexical causatives formed through conversion
(i.e. the lexical causative has exactly the same form as a non-causative
adjective or intransitive verb) but also a productive process of forming
morphological causatives through the addition of an affix to the base (e.g.
Japanese causative suffix -(s)ase). With respect to lexical causatives
through conversion, English has a number of examples (see Levin 1993:
244-245; English Verb Classes and Alternations):

(1) abate, alter, blast, blunt, blur, burn, burst, capsize, change, chill,
clear, clean, clog, close, collapse, compress, condense, contract, cool,
corrode, crumble, decompose, decrease, deflate, defrost, degrade, dim,
diminish, dissolve, distend, double, drain, dry, dull, empty, even, explode,
freeze, halt, heal, ignite, improve, increase, inflate, kindle, level, melt,
multiply, narrow, open, overturn, pale, pop, quiet, round, rupture, shrink,
shrivel, shut, sink, slow, smooth, soak, splay, stretch, submerge, subside,
tame, tan, taper, thaw, tilt, topple, triple, unfold, vary, warm, warp

I look forward to your response. Thank you in advance for your time and
information. 

Best regards,
Chao








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