[Lingtyp] Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

[Kittilä, Seppo]

Dear all,

Does anyone here happen to know whether there are languages that would code what I have labelled here as agentive and unagentive causees differently. I refer here to cases like 'John made me build a house' (agentive causee) and 'great, now you made me break this' (unagentive causee). In both cases, the causee is responsible for what happens, but there are clear differences in whether the causee acts volitionally, purposefully and is in control. There are many languages where the agentivity/volitionality of the causer is formally manifest in cases like 'I broke something on purpose/accidentally' (for example the case marking of the Causer varies accordingly, see, e.g., Fauconnier 2012), but are there similar cases for Causees. And I am not looking for cases where the degree of volitionality of the Causee is different as in 'I made/let him do something', but cases where the coding of a Causee that accidentally causes something to happen is different from a Causee whose action is volitional and controlled.

All the best,
Seppo
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