Causative verbs and Intransitive Causatives

MANGIALAVORI RASIA, MARÍA EUGENIA; AUSENSI, JOSEP

Atenas

Congreso; Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea; 2021

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

We focus on an underexplored argument structure realization in causatives; and, specifically, on the productivity asymmetry between English (1) and Romance (2). Intransitive Causatives (ICs) feature an (inanimate) subject which is interpreted as possible cause of change of state (COS). In ICs, the undergoer remains semantically and syntactically unrealized. (1)a. Smoking kills.b. Alcohol dehydrates.c. Rice constipates.(2)a. Fumar mata.b. El alcohol deshidrata.c. El arroz estriñe. ICs challenge major generalizations concerning argument structure alternation: notably, that the internal argument is an invariable constituent in the causative alternation (Hale & Keyser 2002, i.a.); or that unique arguments in COS verbs are, by default, undergoers (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005). Properties. ICs fail patterns expected for null-object constructions, like null-object oriented depictives, secondary/adjectival predicates (readily allowed by null/arbitrary implicit arguments, Rizzi 1996), or null-object quantification (cf. Smoking kills *depressed/*some vs., John cooks/eats healthy some). Although featuring COS verbs, ICs behave statively: like Individual-Level-Predications, ICs cannot appear in perception reports (#I saw smoking kill), be located in space (#Shaving creams irritate in the bathroom), license habitual readings (#Smoking regularly kills), etc. The definition of Dispositional Causation (Copley 2018) explains major semantic restrictions (Subject=probable cause). Proposal. ICs are monadic (atransitive) realizations of the verb, where the external-argument-introducing head responsible for the causative component is merely complemented, not by a theme, but by mere rhematic information (RhemeP, Ramchand 2008), √ specifying the COS potentially triggered by the subject (vP [DPCAUSE/TRIGGER [v INITº, RHEME √]). The lack of the internal-argument-licensing head (V)?argued to be the responsible for event denotation (LRH 1995, Ramchand 2007)?correlated with stativity suggests that, no theme, no COS-event-encoding component in the semantic/syntactic makeup of the VP. An external-argument-selecting vº interpreted as probable cause explains nonagentivity/intentionality (Folli & Harley 2007).ICs reveal: ?A crosslanguage asymmetry linking (non)productivity with certain verb classes, which we contend follows from aspectual properties of the verb class; ?A major contrast in argument interpretation and structure used for equivalent meaning. (3)Barcelona enloquece.(Spanish)*Barcelona maddens.(cf. lit.=Barcelona goes mad) (English)?Barcelona causes madness? ReferencesHale, Kenneth and Samuel Jay Keyser, (2002), Prolegomenon to a theory of argument Structure, Cambridge: MIT Press.Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport-Hovav, (2005), Argument realization, New York: Cambridge University Press.Ramchand, Gillian, (2008), Verb meaning and the lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Folli, Raffaela and Heidy Harley, (2007), Causation, obligation and argument structure: on the nature of little v, Linguistic Inquiry, 38(2), 197?238. Copley, Bridget, (2018), Dispositional causation, Glossa: a Journal of General Linguistics, 3(1), 1?36.