[Lingtyp] A generalization about morphological and syntactic causatives

Wed Jun 7 19:35:20 UTC 2023

Thanks, Michael! Just to clarify – I’m not equating indirect causation with induced/mediated causation. Induced/mediated causation via an intermediate agent is merely one special case of indirect causation. It just happens to be that special case that I’m particularly interested in for the purposes of the generalization in question. – Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
Fax: (716) 645 3825
Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
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From: Michael Daniel <misha.daniel at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 at 3:30 PM
To: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] A generalization about morphological and syntactic causatives
Hi Juergen,

I guess this depends very much on how strict you are on defining periphrastic causatives, to distinguish them from more lexical constructions with coercive semantics.

Dargwa languages (East Caucasian) tend to have a fully productive morphological causative that also applies to (di)transitive verbs. Barylnikova 2019<https://langsci-press.org/catalog/view/225/1607/1659-1> describes a series of periphrastic constructions that she (as I would also, at least loosely) qualifies as periphrastic causatives in Mehweb Dargwa. Frankly, I did not know it was so rare; it did not seem unexpected to me at the time we edited the book; and I thought, back then, that you would be able to find similar examples in other East Caucasian languages.

Michael

PS I found it unobvious that you equated causatives from transitive verbs to indirect causation, but apparently this depends on the definition of indirect causation and does not directly relate to your question.

ср, 7 июн. 2023 г., 20:57 Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>:
Dear all – It seems that languages with fully productive morphological causatives tend to lack syntactic (a.k.a. periphrastic/analytical) causatives. By ‘fully productive’, I mean crucially that the causative marker can be applied to already transitive (and thus semantically causative) bases, and therefore can be used to express indirect causation. Examples of languages that have fully productive morphological causatives in this sense and lack periphrastic causative constructions include Chuvash, Japanese, Hindi/Urdu, and Shawi (Cahuapanan, Peru).

Two questions about the above generalization:

(i)                  Are there counterexamples?

(ii)                Are there statements of this generalization in the literature?

Thanks! – Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
Fax: (716) 645 3825
Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
(Leonard Cohen)
--

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