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Clepsil Causative

From:Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@...>
Date:Saturday, March 11, 2006, 19:34
This relates to my recent message.

The causative suffix increments the verb's valence. The new argument is the
agent of causation. The causative may be added to intransitives of either
type and to monotransitives. The (direct) object, which isn't marked for
case, is unchanged, while the subject becomes marked as indirect object.

First, note that I'm using the terms voluntary and involuntary loosely; I'm
not sure what the exact semantic factor is yet.

Originally Involuntary Intransitives:
When the reflexive prefix is added to the causatives of these, the
remaining argument denotes a voluntary subject.

Noun  IVerb  ==>  Noun-DR  Rfx-IVerb-Caus

Originally Voluntary Intransitives:
The causatives of these can be made involuntary by marking the agent of
causation as unspecified; this probably requires an inverse subject.

Noun-DR  VVerb  ==>  Noun-IR  Uns-VVerb-Caus

Originally Monotransitive:
The inversion of original subject and object is no longer available, since
the inverse is needed for inversion of causative agent and original agent.
Likewise, the original reflexive is no longer available. Probably, the
causative isn't used much with transitives.

Comments?

Jeff