Abstract
In my paper, I analyze the meaning of tense-aspect forms of Russian causative verbs, such as zastavit' 'make' and pozvolit' 'let'. I show that the situation is different, depending on whether the causer is an agent or an event. In constructions with an agentive causer the tense-aspect characteristics refers to the whole event or only to the causing event, making the causative construction similar to other biverbal constructions. In contrast, if the causer is an event, this can yield an interesting semantic effect, making the tense refer to the caused event only. In fact, the crucial thing is that the tense also refers to the caused event, but not to the event in the narrow sense, rather to its result. This posits a problem which has not been accounted for in the literature on grammatical marking of causatives.
Highlights
In this paper I will consider the causative constructions in Russian
[1] In what follows, I take into account only the simplest meanings of Russian perfective and imperfective verbs, namely, actual situation, taking place in the reference point, for imperfective, and finished situation for perfective
Let me briefly sketch the types of verbs which can form the verb + infinitive constructions – they can embed another verb in the infinitive form
Summary
In this paper I will consider the causative constructions in Russian. Like most detransitivizing languages, Russian has the means to express the causative meaning, though these means are lexical, and not grammatical (see Shibatani (1976), especially Comrie (1976), Shibatani & Pardeshi (2002), Shibatani & Pardeshi (2002) on grammatical means of expressing the causative meaning). Note that normally adverbials situated before the main predicate cannot be interpreted with respect to the embedded verb: cf (23), with an agentive causer, and (24), with a non-causative predicate: (23) Včera Putin svo-imi dejstvij-ami pozvoli-l
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