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?
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