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Causative/Benefactive Interaction

From:Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 21:16
Is there a semantic difference between:

"(Abe made Bob do something) for Charlie"

and

"Abe made (Bob do something for Charlie)."

?

In other words does it matter enough, whether it was Bob's doing something
that benefitted Charlie, or Abe making it happen that benefitted Charlie, for
any language's speakers to have a way, in their language, to mark the
difference?

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The question itself is quick enough; why I'm asking might be less quick.

There are languages with morphological causatives; the verb can be marked in
such a way that the subject of the post-transformed clause is the causer, and
the agent of the pre-transform clause is now the "causee".  If the language
permits, the causee may not be demoted out of the core, but may remain as
an object in the post-transform clause.

There are languages with benefactive applicatives; the verb can be marked in
such a way that the direct-or-primary object of the post-transformed clause
is the beneficiary.  If the language permits, the direct-or-primary object (if
there was one) of the pre-transformed clause may not be demoted out of the
core, but may remain as an indirect-or-secondary object in the post-transform
clause.

In some languages both can occur; if the root clause (before either
transformation) didn't have more than two arguments (say, Agent=Subject
and Patient=Direct-Object), then both transformations can be applied, one
after the other, and the result will be a tritransitive (if the root clause was
monotransitive) or ditransitive (if the root clause was monovalent) clause.

In such cases, does it matter whether: the causativization is done first, and
then the benefactive applicativization is done to the resulting, causativized
clause; or the benefactivev applicativization is done first, and then the
causativization is done to the resulting, applicativized clause?

Reply

Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>