Variation in analytic causative constructions: a view on German and Romance

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the German analytic causative construction to its Romance counterpart, focusing on three main differences: word order, case assignment, and the presence/absence of the obligation effect. We argue that all three differences can be related to a phrase structural difference, namely the type of projection heading the infinitival complement. We provide evidence that while the causative predicate embeds a VoiceP in German, Romance fare/faire combines with an ApplP. This difference is argued to lead to VP-movement in Romance, accounting for the word order differences between the languages in question. The presence/absence of this movement is also shown to have consequences in terms of case. Adopting a phase-based dependent case approach, we show that while German analytic causative constructions involve two case-domains, Romance ones project only one, which leads to assignment of two dependent cases: accusative and dative. Ultimately, we show that dative case is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the obligation effect to arise, which accounts for its presence in Romance analytic causatives, and its absence in German.