Khrakovsky, V. S. CAUSAL VS CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS // Proceedings of Petrozavodsk State University. 2020. Vol. 42. No 3. P. 64–70. DOI: 10.15393/uchz.art.2020.466


Linguistics

CAUSAL VS CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

Khrakovsky
V. S. 		Institute for Linguistic Studies RAN
Keywords:
construction
cause
consequence
causative relation
verb
situation		 Summary: The paper is a study into causal and causative constructions on cross-linguistic evidence. These constructions differ in their syntactic structure where a causal construction is a two-clause construction typically built as a complex sentence, while a causative construction is a single-clause structure typically built as a simple sentence. Correspondingly, they are described in different grammar sections. At the same time, since both construction types characterize complex causative situations consisting of a situation of Cause and a situation of Cause-determined Consequence, this provides a ground for their contrastive study. In complex sentences, the subordinate clause describes the cause, and the main clause, its consequence. Additionally, subordinate clauses include variously built causative relation markers. These are mostly conjunctions, though a verb morpheme or a verb clitic can fulfi ll this role as well. In causative constructions, causative relations can be marked by a morpheme inside a derivative causative verb form, or by a functional causative verb used in the predicate position. All verb arguments (except the fi rst argument) in such constructions pose as situation participants, with the fi rst argument position fi lled by the cause-situation agent (or the cause situation itself, where it has no participants). The fundamental difference between the two constructions is that the focus of a causal situation is the situation of Cause, while the focus of a causative situation is the situation of Consequence.



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