[Lingtyp] A generalization about morphological and syntactic causatives

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear Jürgen,

as you do not reveal what makes you entertain this hypothesis, I can 
only speculate. Are you thinking of its diachronic side? Synthetic 
causative construction originate in analytic causative constructions by 
grammaticalization. As has been known since the beginnings of research 
in grammaticalization, the genesis of a target construction by 
grammaticalization does not automatically and instantly lead to the 
disappearance of its source.

Second, as has also been well known, the less grammaticalized a 
causative construction is, the more it covers of the spectrum that you 
call 'fully productive'. In the grammaticalization scenario, the source 
construction may therefore be fully productive while the target 
construction is less so. One may therefore believe that the source 
becomes superfluous and disappears once the target construction has 
become fully productive.

To the extent that the above is reasonable, your hypothesis could then 
be true for such syntactic paradigms of causative constructions which 
are in a grammaticalization relationship. In other words, it could be 
possible that the counterexamples which you have received in the answers 
to your question concern such syntactic paradigms which are _not_ in a 
grammaticalization relationship.

But again, this may or may not be the direction of your hypothesis.

Best, Christian
-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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