Transitivity pairs, markedness, and diachronic stability

Abstract

Utilizing the classification of formal relations in causative-inchoative verb pairs developed by Haspelmath (1993), this article examines two further ramifications. First, the 30 verbs in his list are divided into two groups of fifteen, one where crosslinguistically a causative pairing is most likely and the other where the anticausative pairing is most likely. Individual languages are then tested to see whether their verbs conform to this ordering, with overall very positive results. Second, the diachronic stability of languages with predominance of one or other of the individual types within the classification, in particular of the causative and anticausative types, is examined, with some results suggesting stability at least over millennia. Thus, Classical Arabic and Maltese have very similar profiles, even down to individual lexical concepts (even where the two languages have noncognate lexical items). Uralic languages, despite their close proximity to Indo-European languages with predominance of the anticausative type, still show predominance either of the causative type (Finnish, Udmurt), or of the equipollent type (Hungarian), the latter perhaps reflecting a compromise between the putative predominance of the causative type in Proto-Uralic and contact with Indo-European.