СЕМАНТИЧКA И ПРАГМАТИЧКA ДЕТОПИКАЛИЗАЦИЈА АГЕНТИВНОГ КАУЗАТОРА НА ПРИМЕРУ ПАСИВНИХ И ДЕКАУЗАТИВНИХ КОНСТРУКЦИЈА У НОРВЕШКОМ ЈЕЗИКУ

Abstract

This paper deals with the relation between causative constructions, and decausative and passive constructions in modern Norwegian, aiming to shed light on what happens with the causative component and the agentive causer. The research is focused on the notions of semantic and/ or pragmatic detopicalization as both constructions can present the situation as one without an external cause (semantic detranzitivation). The impetus of the research was as follows: although few synthetic causatives in Norwegian licence the prototypical Agent in the semantic role of the Causer, and most of the verbs allow also less prototypical Agents as Causers (forces, events, instrument etc), only the prototypical Agents get formally peripherized in passive constructions. Others, although of equal status in the causative construction, get peripherized only in the decausative constructions, conceptualized as circumstances. The conclusion is that that the process of deagentivization precedes the decausativization and is to be considered a primarily semantic shift that changes the status of the situation and the lexical structure of the verb. The decausativization proper is a pragmatic shift that bears resemblance to the passive. But the most prominent feature of the decausative is not the complete deletion of the causative component, but rather the incompatibility with the agentive Causer. The special focus of the paper was on two identically marked constructions, both expressed by a polyfunctional reflexive marker (the s-passive and s/seg-decausative), a special case where the possibility of two different interpretations can occur.