[Lingtyp] Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

Wed Oct 30 12:39:31 UTC 2024

Dear Seppo et al. – I understand. I think this is a terminological issue. In my mind, what you describe is an involuntary causee involved against their will in bringing about a to them undesirable outcome (or so the speaker frames it). To me, this is not the same as an accidental agent. Accidental agents have a plan of action and then either realize that plan with unintended consequences or wind up realizing a different action from what they had intended, as described by Alicke (2000). To me, this frame is difficult to apply to causees, since they only have a plan of action if they have control over the induced action. For example, imagine A asking B to do the dishes, and B breaking a glass in the process. In this case, B is an accidental agent – but do they get to blame A for the breaking of the glass, so that they (B) could be construed as the causee of the breaking event? I guess that’s an empirical question, and the answer might depend on the language. – Best – Juergen

Alicke, Mark D. 2000. Culpable control and the psychology of blame. Psychological Bulletin 126(4): 556–574.

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
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University at Buffalo

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Kittilä, Seppo via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 02:59
To: Riccardo Giomi <r.giomi at uva.nl>, Haig, Geoffrey <geoffrey.haig at uni-bamberg.de>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

Dear all,

Thank you very much for all your answers to my query, they have all been very helpful. As for Jürgen's message, I may specify what I meant a bit, since I very well get that the idea of an accidentally acting causee is a bit odd. First, the examples that Riccardo gave would be one good example of this. What I originally had in time when I sent the query was cases like 'Great. look what you made me do, I broke this vase'. This sentence would be possible (at least in my L2 variety of English) when, for example, someone pushes me making me stumble and hit a vase that falls down and breaks. In that case, someone else causes me do to cause another state-of-affairs that results in a broken vase. I know that the causation by the causer and the role of causee are not understood in the prototypical sense in these cases, but in any case an external causer causes me to participate in an event of breaking and my action is accidental/involuntary/not controlled.

Did this make things clearer? All the best,
Seppo
________________________________
Lähettäjä: Riccardo Giomi <r.giomi at uva.nl>
Lähetetty: tiistai 29. lokakuuta 2024 20.16
Vastaanottaja: Kittilä, Seppo <seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi>; Haig, Geoffrey <geoffrey.haig at uni-bamberg.de>
Kopio: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Aihe: Re: Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

Dear all,

One language that might possibly be relevant to both Seppo's and Geoff's messages (if only, perhaps, tangentially) could be Mongsen Ao. Below is how the dative-marked / unmarked causee opposition is described in Coupe's grammar (p. 195):

[cid:45a17d4e-80d9-487d-a008-da74913126b8]

And below is an example showing how the 'agentive' (AGT) case enclitic can be used to stress the volitional involvement of the A argument (p. 157), with no change to the verb:

[cid:116776a2-f8d3-4a78-86dd-d64bfc912623]

Hope this helps!

Best,
R

______

Coupe, A. R. 2007. A Grammar of Mongsen Ao  [Mouton Grammar Series MGL, 39]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
______

Riccardo Giomi
Assistant Professor of Functional Linguistics
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities: Department of Linguistics
Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Haig, Geoffrey via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: 29 October 2024 18:56
To: Kittilä, Seppo <seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

Dear Seppo,

I can’t help you with examples of distinct causative markers according to volitionality/agentivity of the causee, but I was curious about your remark re the related alternation on causers (I broke X accidentally/on purpose), and the reference to Faucconier (2012). I assume you mean her 2012 thesis?

As I read Faucconiier, a key take-away point of her work was in fact the typological paucity of strategies for flagging volitionality vs. non-volitionality of a transitive subject (A), on the A itself. It can be done by a shift in the verb (often involving a voice alternation), but apparently not often via flagging alone.

I found the claim surprising at the time, but I have to admit I have not actually since found a language that exhibits what (I think) she means, which would be a language that had a marker, –X, to differentiate a volitional breaker from non-volitional breaker, without accompanying changes to the verb (Jane broke the vase (i.e. accidentally) vs. Jane-x broke the vase (intentionally)).

I am aware of such examples with intransitive verbs of course (the famous Batsbi/Tsova-Tush examples, and so on). But not of clear cases of transitives.

Anyway, I’d be happy to hear of clear examples of volitionality-based differential-A marking (ruling out those accompanied by a change of lexical verb (common with light verbs), or a voice shift on the verb).

Not sure if we need to open a sub-thread on the list for this, could be just directly relayed to me. I’d be happy to post a general summary of whatever comes in,

Best wishes

Geoff

**************************************

Geoffrey Haig

Professor of Linguistics

Institut fuer Orientalistik

Universität Bamberg

96047 Bamberg

https://www.uni-bamberg.de/aspra/team/aktuelles-team/prof-dr-geoffrey-haig/

Tel. +49 951 8632490 / Dept. admin: +49 951 863 2491

Von: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> Im Auftrag von Kittilä, Seppo via Lingtyp
Gesendet: Dienstag, 29. Oktober 2024 15:52
An: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Betreff: [Lingtyp] Agentive vs. unagentive causees?

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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