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CAUSATIVE CONJUGATION Lntroduction the Grammatical Category "Causative" Is Semantically Definable As a "Macrosituation" Consisting of Two "Microsituations"

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CHAPTER FOUR THE SEMITIC CAUSATIVE CONJUGATION lntroduction The grammatical category "causative" is semantically definable as a "macrosituation" consisting of two "microsituations". A microsituation consists of two constants: thema and rhema or subject and predicate. When two such microsituations are combined so that one is considered the cause of the other, we speak of a causative macrosituation.' It is obvious that there are many ways of realizing this semantic structure on the expression Ievel of a language. We are here concerned with one of these devices, viz. the causative verb. Such a verb represents two elements of the causative macrosituation: the predicates of both the causing and the caused microsituations. The causative macrosituation Iooks like this: the fiddler cause the girl dance s p S* P* A characteristic of the situation underlying the causative verb is that the predicate of the causing situation is empty of all semantic content except the feature causativity. 2 In transformational terms, the surface structure can be described as the result of predicate raising of P* and objectivization of S *. the fiddler cause-dance the girl In many languages, predicate raising does not usually occur. Instead P is realized as a separate verb 'to cause'. This is also found in Semitic although we mostly have causative verbs including both P and P*. 3 Syntactically such verbs are characterized by valency increasing: a monovalent verb ( = intransitive) is made bivalent by the addition of one actant, viz. the causator ( = S), while the former first actant (S*) is moved 1 For the following analysis see especially Nedyalkov/Silnitzky, 1 f. 2 Saad (76 ff., 81) goes even further, claiming that causativity is not a feature of the verb but a sentence modifier like tense, negation etc. This is based upon the difficulties of paraphrasing some causative verbs in HA. Another analysis is given by Talmy (esp. 47) denying the existence of an independent notion "causative". 3 For examples of auxiliaries and other expressions of the causative in Arabic, see Saad, 65 ff. 50 THE SEMITIC CAUSATIVE CONJUGATION one step down in the valency hierarchy and realized as object. One group of causative verbs can thus be characterized as the result of transitivization of intransitives. These causatives are thus bivalent (taking two actants). Another large group of causative verbs aretrivalent (with two objects). These are derived from bivalent transitives and govern three noun phrases: the causator (S), the causee (S*) and the former object. 4 There are then two important factors to keep in mind: (1) that the semantic category causative is not necessarily represented only by the morphological category causative and (2) that in order to be classified as causative a verb must have two distinctive features: (a) it must be semantically analyzable as representing the elements of the causative macrosituation, P and P*; (b) it must stand in a paradigmatic opposition to a non-causative verb characterized by lower valency by the factor -1. This structural definition is one which is practically workable. If causativity were defined solely as a semantic feature in certain isolated lexemes, one would soon get into difficulties in determining the nature of causativity: which transitive verbs are causative and which are not? This confusion reigns to a large extent in Semitic studies. Our definition does not abolish all complications and ambiguities, but it gives a far better criterion for classification than the usual method employed by Semitists. In Semitic, the increased valency of the causative verb is normally marked morphologically as a directed derivation from the non-causative verb. 5 There are, however, inverse cases where a non-causative verbis derived in a similar way from the causative one, like Arabic kasar 'break' (causative), nkasar 'be broken, break' (intransitive). These verbs, sometimes called anti-causative, may in languages which form their PM by directed derivation be impossible to distinguish from the latter. This often happens in Semitic. 6 In most Semitic languages we find morphological categories of the verb which are traditionally labelled causative. These verbs are formed by adding an element, a prefix, to a more basic stem, thus basically a directed derivation. In e.g. Akkadian a large group of verbs is characterized by the consonantal element f added to the stem, an element 4 For an analysis of the causative in HA in the terms of valency grammar, see Xrakovskij, passim. For the different types of objects, see Comrie, 266-271. Loprieno's designation of the causative as "Aktionsart" (142) is most unfortunate. 5 I.e. a privative opposition. Forthis terminology, see the Introduction to the present work. The secondary character of causative verbs is important for the history of the category, see e.g. Rundgren, Kausativ, especially 135-137. 6 For this problem, see Retsö, Passive, 55-57. For the term anticausative see Nedyalkov/Silnitzky, 20, 22 ff. .
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