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Deriving causation

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Abstract

This paper analyzes causative and experiencerhave, arguing that this verb has little or no underlying meaning.Have comes to meancause orexperience when it forms a complex predicate with another verb. The addition ofhave to another predicate has the effect of extending the event denoted by the predicate to include a peripheral cause or effect (experience). This complex predicate formation takes place at the level of argument structure, and the interpretation of the complex takes place at conclude that there is only one verhave, and even though it seems to mean something, the meaning is not part of the lexical representation of the verb, but rather is derived from the syntactic structure. Our analysis also provides new insights into the Japanese causatives and so-called adversity passives, which submit to the same analysis as Englishhave. We analyze all verbs that contribute no thematic information asfunctor predicates. These verbs get their interpretation from their syntactic function, rather than from their lexical semantics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, M5S 1A1, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Elizabeth Ritter

  2. Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, 66045, Lawrence, KS

    Sara Thomas Rosen

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  1. Elizabeth Ritter
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  2. Sara Thomas Rosen
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Additional information

We would like to thank several people for invaluable comments and discussion in preparation of this paper. Among them are Maggie Browning, Jane Grimshaw, Isabelle Haïk, Beth Levin, Juan Uriagereka, our careful NLLT reviewers, and audiences of NELS 1990 and the Workshop on Lexical-Syntactic Relations at the University of Toronto, February 1990. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and The University of Kansas General Research Allocation 3417-XX-0038.

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Ritter, E., Rosen, S.T. Deriving causation. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 11, 519–555 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993168

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993168

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