Causalness and the encoding of the causative–anticausative alternation in French and Spanish

Bibliographic Data

ID10141454
AuthorsSelina Heidinger (0000-0002-2196-0743, University of Graz, corresponding author), Steffen Heidinger
Year2015
Volume51
Issue3
Pages562-594
Publication date2015-03-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226714000607
OpenAlexW2076018750
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited26

In French and Spanish, both parts of the causative–anticausative alternation can be formally encoded in two ways: Depending on the form of the verb, marked and unmarked causatives and marked and unmarked anticausatives can be distinguished. The goal of this paper is to verify whether causalness is a factor in the encoding and whether the two languages differ in this respect (verbs used more often as causatives than as anticausatives have a high degree of causalness, while verbs used more often as anticausatives than as causatives have a low degree of causalness). On the basis of a corpus study of 20 French and 20 Spanish verbs, it will be shown that in both languages a strong correlation between causalness and encoding exists. A high degree of causalness increases the likelihood that a verb’s anticausative is marked and the causative is unmarked, and a low degree of causalness increases the likelihood that a verb’s anticausative is unmarked and the causative is marked

Alternation (linguistics · Causative · Cognitive psychology · Degree (music · Encoding (memory · Linguistics · Physics · Verb · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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