Causative Constructions Research Articles

Investigating Indonesian EFL learners’ knowledge and use of English causative constructions

Abstract This paper explored Indonesian EFL learners’ explicit knowledge, processing, and use of English periphrastic causative constructions make, have, and get. 20 English L1 speakers and 20 Indonesian intermediate level EFL learners majoring in English Language Education at an Indonesian university took part in this study. Data were collected through a cloze task, a sentence completion task, an interpretation task, and a set of open-ended questions asking learners to provide descriptions about their knowledge of the constructions. Results showed that learners did not always use the first noun strategy to identify the agent in a passive causative construction. Also, their suppliances of the causative verbs in most items did not significantly differ from L1 speakers. However, the syntactic patterns were mostly non-target-like. They demonstrated insufficient explicit knowledge that could enable them to verbalize the formal and functional aspects underlying the constructions. Pedagogical implications along with suggestions to improve instruction are discussed.

To Be with or Not: Emotional Causality and Afrikaans Prepositional met and van Constructions

The objective of this article is to consider the Afrikaans prepositions met (with) and van (of) in relation to emotional causality from a cognitive linguistics perspective. The inquiry opens with the question of how a cognitive linguistics analysis that proceeds from reference points can capture the patterned use of the Afrikaans preposition met and van in relation to other aspects of proximity relationships, specifically the causal experience of emotion and companionship. Although met can manifest a precise merged point in time and space, for concomitant causation concerning responses to emotions in Afrikaans, a construction such as bewe van vrees/angs (tremble with fear/anxiety) employs the preposition van, as would be the case in other causal constructions of the same form, such as bewe van die koue (tremble with cold), and so emphasises intersections between companionship, containment, causality, circumstances, and possession.

Event Types and (In)Directness of Causation in Akan

Abstract This paper presents a proposal on the form-function correlation between direct causation and non-periphrastic causatives on one hand, and indirect causation and periphrastic causatives on the other hand. The study argues that notions of direct and indirect causation are actually features of event types of causation and vary across different event types. We present five event types of causation found in Akan causatives and isolate their properties with regard to the causer, causee, control of resultant state/event and (in)direct physical contact between causer and causee. We show that in Akan, all types of causatives, lexical, cause-effect SVC and analytic causatives can encode any of the major event types of causation. Consequently, rather than mapping causative expressions with notions of direct or indirect causation, we analyze (in)directness of causation as a feature of event types of causation, not of causative expressions themselves. Thus, although the form-function correlation in causatives may hold in some languages we argue that (in)direct causation is not encoded separately in causative forms and constructions.

СЕМАНТИЧЕСКИЕ ТИПЫ КАУЗАТИВНЫХ ГЛАГОЛОВ В ТЕКСТАХ ХАКАССКИХ ГЕРОИЧЕСКИХ СКАЗАНИЙ

Рассматриваются семантические типы каузативных глаголов хакасского языка, нашедшие отражение в текстах хакасских героических сказаний «Алтын Арыг» и «Ах Чибек Арыг», записанных от популярного народного сказителя Хакасии С. П. Кадышева (1885–1977), «Ай Хуучын» и «Айдолай», записанных от сказителя П. В. Курбижекова (1910–1966), «Хара Хусхун», записанного от сказителя П. В. Тоданова. Актуальность данного исследования связана с тем, что каузативные глаголы активны в употреблении и представляют большой интерес для исследователей-лингвистов. Необходимость изучения семантических типов каузативных глаголов в текстах хакасских героических сказаний вызвана неразработанностью данного вопроса на сегодняшний день, чем и определяется новизна исследования. Целью статьи является выявление семантики и функционирования каузативных глаголов в текстах хакасских героических сказаний. В задачи исследования входит выявление всех каузативных глаголов, встречающихся в текстах героических сказаний; определение и анализ каузативных аффиксов, участвующих в образовании каузативных глаголов; выявление словообразовательных моделей каузативных глаголов, представленных в текстах героических сказаний. Анализ фактического материала проводился с использованием комплекса лингвистических методов и приемов. Наиболее перспективным при решении поставленных задач были признаны метод сплошной выборки примеров, предусматривающий подбор примеров для анализа и выписывание из текстов героических сказаний подряд всех встречающихся в нём примеров анализируемого типа, описательный метод для выявления каузативных глаголов и их последовательного описания с точки зрения их структуры и функционирования. Метод дистрибутивного анализа позволил выявить валентность каузативного глагола. В результате исследования выявлены и проанализированы семантические типы каузативных глаголов, а именно, фактитивный, пермиссивный и фактитивно-рефлексивный, пермиссивно-рефлексивный типы; определены актуальные для языка героического эпоса словообразовательные модели каузативных глаголов. Для глаголов с фактитивной семантикой выявлено пять словообразовательных моделей; для пермиссивной – три модели; фактитивно-рефлексивный и пермиссивно-рефлексивный по одной модели. Исследование также показало, что в текстах хакасских героических сказаний часто используется двойной каузатив, который выражает как фактитивное, так и пермиссивное значение. Полученные результаты могут найти применение при чтении лекционных курсов по хакасскому языку на филологических факультетах вузов, при составлении учебных и учебно-методических пособий, словарей. В перспективе интересные результаты могут дать исследования каузативных конструкций, характерных для текстов героических сказаний, в сопоставительном и сравнительно-типологическом освещении.

What Time Does in Language: a Cross-Linguistic Cognitive Study of Source Related Variation in Verbal Time Metaphors in American English, Finnish and Hungarian

"What Time Does in Language: a Cross-Linguistic Cognitive Study of Source Related Variation in Verbal Time Metaphors in American English, Finnish and Hungarian. Such a universal yet abstract concept as time shows variation in metaphorical language. This research focuses on metaphorical language within the framework of the cognitive metaphor theory, investigating time through a contrastive cross-linguistic approach in three satellite-framed languages. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study attempts to identify what time does in language in a metaphorical context, with a focus on verbs in causative constructions (e.g. time heals) as well as manner of motion verbs (e.g. time rushes), through an empirical corpus-based study complemented by the lexical approach. The two main conceptual metaphors that are investigated in this study are TIME IS A CHANGER and TIME IS A MOVING ENTITY. While these two conceptual metaphors are expected to be frequent in all three languages, differences such as negative/positive asymmetry or preference of a type of motion over another are expected to be found. The primary objective is to explore such differences and see how they manifest and why. The hypothesis is that variations among the three languages related to the source domain (CHANGER and MOVING ENTITY), are more likely to be internal and not external. The purpose is to investigate these variations and to determine what cognitive underpinnings they can be traced back to, with a focus on image schemas. The study reveals that source internal variation does prevail over source external variation. The results show that cross-linguistic differences of such a relevant concept as time do exist but more often through unique characteristics of the same source domain rather than new, distinctive domains. Keywords: cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, conceptual metaphor theory, metaphorical entailments, source domain "

Two Places for Causees in Productive IsiXhosa Morphological Causatives

AbstractProductive morphological causatives in isiXhosa exhibit a case alternation with respect to the causee: it can be unmarked or instrumental. Much recent literature on similar alternations in causative constructions in other languages analyzes them as involving differences in the size or category of the constituent selected by the causative morpheme. We show that such an analysis cannot be extended to isiXhosa and that both alternants are verb‐selecting causatives. We propose instead that the alternation actually concerns the place in the structure in which the causee is introduced: in the specifier of the causative head itself in the unmarked‐causee construction, in a PP adjoined to the embedded verb phrase in the instrumental‐causee construction. This article thus adds to a growing body of evidence that the same thematic roles are not always assigned in the same syntactic positions.

ТИПОЛОГИЯ ПРИЧИННЫХ КОНСТРУКЦИЙ В ГИПОТАКСИСЕ (на материале публицистики XX–XXI веков)

ТИПОЛОГИЯ ПРИЧИННЫХ КОНСТРУКЦИЙ В ГИПОТАКСИСЕ (на материале публицистики XX–XXI веков)

The Transitivity Index: Using Transitivity as a continuous measure to account for clitic case alternation in Spanish causative constructions.

In Spanish causative constructions with dejar ‘let’ and hacer ‘make’ the subject of the embedded infinitive verb can appear in the accusative or the dative case. This case alternation has been accounted for by resorting to the notion of direct vs. indirect causation. Under this account, the accusative clitic with a transitive verb denotes direct causation while the dative clitic with an intransitive verb expresses indirect causation. The problem with this account is that we lack an independent definition of (in)direct causation in this context and so this approach suffers from circularity: the case of the clitic is used to determine causation type and causation type implies use of one or the other grammatical case. Therefore, a more objective way to account for clitic case alternation is needed. In this paper, I offer one possible solution in this direction by investigating clitic case alternation against Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity parameters and a small number of other linguistic variables. The novelty of this approach is that I operationalise Transitivity as a weighted continuous measure (which I call the Transitivity Index) and use it to predict the case of the clitic. The results indicate that the transitivity of the infinitive verb, the animacy of the object and the agentivity of the subject are strong predictors of clitic case. Moreover, the Transitivity Index clearly shows that higher levels of Transitivity are associated with the dative clitic contrary to other contexts in which accusative is said to be more transitive. The findings in this paper allow us to arrive at a finer-grained characterization of the contexts in which each clitic case is more likely to occur and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of Transitivity in natural language.

Cross-linguistic influence in the second language processing of Korean morphological and syntactic causative constructions

Abstract This study investigated the effects of cross-linguistic influence in Japanese speakers’ integration of morphological and syntactic information during the processing of Korean transitive causative constructions. We examined whether Japanese speakers would process two types of Korean causative constructions as efficiently as native speakers: (a) when one target structure was instantiated differently from learners’ L1 correspondents and (b) when the other type was unique to the L2. Although the learners showed native-like performance during an acceptability judgment task, they had difficulties with the integration of morphological and syntactic information during a self-paced reading task when the target construction gave rise to cross-linguistic competitions with the L1 correspondent, but not when the target construction was unique to the L1. Our findings support the claim that cross-linguistic cue competitions are a major source of difficulties in L2 sentence processing.

Synaptic Learning With Augmented Spikes.

Traditional neuron models use analog values for information representation and computation, while all-or-nothing spikes are employed in the spiking ones. With a more brain-like processing paradigm, spiking neurons are more promising for improvements in efficiency and computational capability. They extend the computation of traditional neurons with an additional dimension of time carried by all-or-nothing spikes. Could one benefit from both the accuracy of analog values and the time-processing capability of spikes? In this article, we introduce a concept of augmented spikes to carry complementary information with spike coefficients in addition to spike latencies. New augmented spiking neuron model and synaptic learning rules are proposed to process and learn patterns of augmented spikes. We provide systematic insights into the properties and characteristics of our methods, including classification of augmented spike patterns, learning capacity, construction of causality, feature detection, robustness, and applicability to practical tasks, such as acoustic and visual pattern recognition. Our augmented approaches show several advanced learning properties and reliably outperform the baseline ones that use typical all-or-nothing spikes. Our approaches significantly improve the accuracies of a temporal-based approach on sound and MNIST recognition tasks to 99.38% and 97.90%, respectively, highlighting the effectiveness and potential merits of our methods. More importantly, our augmented approaches are versatile and can be easily generalized to other spike-based systems, contributing to a potential development for them, including neuromorphic computing.

Variable embedded agent in Sason Arabic

The paper investigates the syntax and semantics of an indirect causative construction, ‘make’ causatives, in Sason Arabic with a focus on the syntax of the embedded structure and the status of the implicit embedded agent. On the basis of several diagnostics, the study demonstrates that ‘make’ embeds an agentive VoiceP, which also manifests an active-passive alternation despite the absence of any morphological reflex. Regarding the nature of the implicit embedded agent, the paper argues that it is present as a free variableà laHeim (1982) generated on the Voice head itself. In so doing, it adds to the ontology of null arguments as well as suggesting that licensing of a grammatical object is dissociated from the projection of a specifier.

Causal vs. causative constructions: A tentative analysis

The paper proposes a contrastive functional and semantic analysis of causal and causative constructions. To our knowledge, this is the fi rst probe of this kind, although both types of constructions describe identical composite causative situations wherein a situation of cause interacts with a situation of consequence determined by the cause. The two construction types diff er in their syntactic structure. Causal constructions consist of two clauses — the main clause describing the consequence, and the dependent clause describing the cause. Causatives are single-clause constructions where verbal predicate’s arguments denote the participants in both the cause and the consequence, while a description of the cause itself is mostly optional. Correspondingly, the focus of a causal construction is the cause, while the focus of a causative construction is the consequence. Another notable diff erence is that causative constructions can function as either of a causal construction’s clauses.

Бипредикативные конструкции с зависимой предикативной единицей места в хакасском языке

The syntax of a complex sentence is of great interest to researchers of various languages. Despite active research, there are many issues to be clarified. Our attention is focused on the syntax of the Khakass language. Previous investigations were devoted to asyndetic compound sentences, concessive and causal constructions in the Khakass language in comparison with the Russian language. Still, given that only a small section of the scientific grammar of the Khakass language covers the topic under discussion, such studies are of great relevance. The current study deals with complex sentences in the Khakas language, namely the bipredicative constructions of place that have not received proper coverage yet. The purpose was to identify and describe the structures concerned. The research revealed that Khakass bipredicative constructions of place are represented by two structural types. The first category includes the constructions in which the relationship between the dependent predicative unit and the main predicative unit is usually realized analytically by means of pronominal adverbs and correlative words, namely deictic locative adverbs. The second type involves determinative constructions, which are dependent predicative units in bipredicative constructions of place. The main predicative unit is connected with the dependent predicative unit by the words in spatial cases (dative, locative, directive, and ablative), and in the dependent predicative unit, they are represented by pronominal adverbs. Furthermore, the dependent predicative unit completely identifies the main predicative unit in space.

Real-time road transportation safety risk evaluation model based on data-mining

Aiming at the shortcoming of the massive amount of manual work required and the result relay on the cognitive level of experts the process cannot be implemented dynamically. A real-time road transportation safety risk evaluation model based on data-mining is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the pre-processing of unstructured text contains process of adding custom item dictionary, deletion of stop words, word segmentation of text at the beginning process, then dynamic risk factors identification using TF-IDF on processed text. Secondly, accident chains extraction by cue words and causal sentence structure construction. Thirdly, the relevance mining among risk factors or accident states through Apriori-algorithm. Finally, real-time risk assessment is realised by classification of the product of obtained probability and severity degree result using K-means. Experiments are conducted on text data set, and the result shows that the accuracy of proposed model is 88%, which is an effective safety risk evaluation model.

Cross-language Comparison and Semantic Map Research in Explicit Causative Constructions

Cross-language Comparison and Semantic Map Research in Explicit Causative Constructions

On Resultative Verb Compounds in Cantonese and Mandarin

Abstract This paper conducts a comparative study on the resultative verb compounds (RVCs) in Cantonese and Mandarin with an aim to reveal and explain the rules governing the use of RVCs in Cantonese. Mandarin RVCs are classified into six types in terms of the number, the sequence, and the event role of the argument(s). While Mandarin RVCs are found to be rather productive in expressing resultatives, there are syntactic constraints imposed on the use of RVC construction in Cantonese. Given that Mandarin RVCs are often restricted in Cantonese, three substitutive constructions that are used to form resultatives have been introduced, namely V-dou3 constructions, V-dou3 in verb-copying construction, and causative construction formed with gaau2-dou3 ‘cause’. Factors that determine the corresponding structures used in Cantonese have been discussed. Claiming that the expressions of Cantonese resultatives should be highly associated with the event roles the involved NP arguments play, we demonstrate that such a classification of RVCs has contributed to the conclusion proposed in this paper. We also propose a set of linking rules which are designated for resultatives in Cantonese. It is hoped that this study sheds light on the syntax studies of Chinese.

«Не більша, як усі мої писання»: контекст та прев’ю автобіографії Василя Стефаника 1926 року

The article is devoted to the preconditions for writing the first Vasyl Stefanyk’s autobiographical work. The research focuses on the problems of genre differentiation and interpretation of the autobiography function, understood by us as a documentary story of first-person biographical facts. Has been defined that the the Vasyl Stefanyk’s autobiographical work became aware for the first time through Ivan Lyzanivskyi’s publication “Stefanyk pro sebe”, on the pages of the magazine “Pluzhanyn” of the Union of Peasant Writers “Pluh”. The peculiarity of the Ukrainian literary process of the 1920s have been described. In particular, the ideological platform of the “Pluh” was focused on peasant issues, tried to attract writers to build a new cultural and social reality, thus contributing of Soviet policy implementation «smychka of the city and the village». In the article is emphasized that rustic motives in Vasyl Stefanyk’s work were of interested to Soviet ideology because they illustrated the shortcomings of “old” peasant life, and for “Pluh” the writer’s work was also a source of folklore material. A significant role in the fact that Vasyl Stefanyk’s name was appearing on the pages of Ukrainian Soviet magazines was played by the publisher, literary critic, and in the past public figure Ivan Lyzanivskyi, who, in particular, have been published fragments of Vasyl Stefanyk’s Autobiography and commented on them in the socialist ideology way. This paper proposes, to take into account the communicative situation during autobiographical texts researching, in which the speaker (namely: Vasyl Stefanyk), in a retrospective manner, depicts the formation of a representative image of his own “Self”. It has been determined that Vasyl Stefanyk’s autobiography of 1926 was, the communicative act realization between the writer and I. Lyzanivskyi. This option will allow to further expand the hermeneutic arsenal, and avoid biased conclusions due to the alleged causal constructions. Keywords: Vasyl Stefanyk, Ivan Lyzanivskyi, autobiography, “Pluzhanin”, subjectivity, literary process, communicative act.

Occurrence Conditions of Ru-form in Causal Construction for Blaming and its Mechanisms of the Nuance Generation

Occurrence Conditions of Ru-form in Causal Construction for Blaming and its Mechanisms of the Nuance Generation

Isoglosses and language change: Evidence of the rise and loss of isoglosses from a comparison of early Greek and early English

AbstractWe analyze the rise and loss of isoglosses in two Indo-European languages, early Greek and early English, which, however, show considerable distance between their structures in many other domains. We follow Keidan’s approach (2013), that has drawn the attention on the fact that the study of isoglosses (i.e., linguistic features common to two or more languages) is connected with common innovations of particular languages after the split into sub-groups of Indo-European: this type of approach aims at collecting isoglosses that appear across the branches of Indo-European. We examine the rise of the isogloss of labile verbs and the loss of the isogloss of the two classes of aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. Our study shows that the rise of labile verbs in both languages is related to the innovative use of intransitives in causative constructions. On the other hand, the innovations in voice morphology follow different directions in Greek and English and are unrelated to the rise of labile verbs. In contrast to labile verbs, which are still predominant for causative-anticausative constructions in both languages, the two classes of aspectual verbs are lost in the later stages of Greek but are predominant even in Present-day English. Again, a “prerequisite” change for the isogloss can be easily located in a structural ambiguity that is relevant for aspectual verbs in early Greek and early English. However, another independent development, the changes in verbal complementation (the development of infinitival and participial complements) in Greek and English, determined the loss of this isogloss.

Causatives in Liangmai

Liangmai, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Manipur and Nagaland, has causative constructions as one of its morpho-syntactic aspects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the morphological processes involved in causative constructions in the language. Liangmai have a productive strategy for forming causatives from all kinds of non-causative verbs. All verbs, intransitive and transitive, form their corresponding morphological causatives by prefixing the causative marker pí-. Another productive causative prefix used in the language is kám-, which causativises intransitive verbs. Besides these two morphological prefixal causative constructions, causative is also expressed lexically by suppletion in the language. The occurrence and the form of double causation is also discussed in the paper.