Re: Passive Causatives

>The dative/focus case used with verbs like "give"
>only make the problem worse ... not to mention
>"W made X more Y than Z (did/is)".

Hmm, when I gave my example, I deliberately used 'force', as 'make' is very
ambiguous in English. In that sentence, 'make' is being used in teh sense of
construction, rather than compulsion.

I made more bricks than Jon
king [make]-ng xe [brick]. Jon [make]-ng [brick].
I make-past some brick. Jon make-past [brick]

dung is the past tense form of du, to be. du functions as a copula verb, and
also acts as an anaphora. It could have been placed as teh verb in teh
second half of the expression. The comparision is realised through the
article 'xe'.

>I have played with using serial-verb constructions
>to evade these problems, with some success.
>Perhaps a more sophisticated use of switch-references
>would help. I assume you don't favor relative clauses.

I have a format for relative clauses, but causality is one of the things
that I want to keep with the main verb if i can.

I said that he is a fool
king lage-ng to wing du [fool] to.
I say-past [rel] he is fool [/rel].

I think causal verbs are conceptually different from relative clauses
though. The second verb is always an infinitive in English, but this is
never teh case with relative clauses.

---
Rhialto
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.