Causative Marker Research Articles

Causative construction in Likpakpaanl (Konkomba)

This article is a contribution to the cross-linguistic discussion on causation. It proceeds on the note that causation is a significant notion, both cognitively and grammatically. I make a case that the Mabia (Gur) languages of West Africa are severely under-represented in the literature on causation. I then focus on causation in Likpakpaanl, an under-researched Mabia language spoken in Ghana and Togo in West Africa. I further present data from thirteen other related West African languages for comparative purposes. Broadly speaking, Likpakpaanl deploys all the traditional causation strategies- lexical, morphological, serialising and analytic. However, the use of nasals, especially vowel nasality as a causativisers is novel and uniquely places Likpakpaanl among its linguistic relatives. The Likpakpaanl analytic causative marker chà has a functional scope for both factitive and permissive causatives. In a sense, the source of the specialised analytic causative marker in Likpakpaanl diverges from the oft-cited cross-linguistic source of analytic causative markers. The Likpakpaanl biclausal causative is the balanced structure and, therefore, aligns well with the biclausal causative structure described for the West African linguistic area, contra the deraked structure of Indo-European languages. A thorough investigation of the constellation of causatives in Mabia promises new insights into causative typology.

Valency-Changing Operations in Nkò̩ró̩ò̩ (Kìrìkà)

Every language employs some valency-changing operation that either decreases or increases the transitivity of the verb. In the grammar of languages, the verb is considered to be the most important element in the sentence structure, and valence is the most common category of verbal morphology, surpassing tense, aspect, and subject agreement. However, it is often overlooked in the linguistic descriptions of many African languages. Moreso, within the Ijoid language family, this verbal category is under-described. This paper investigated the valency-changing operational types in Nko̩ro̩o̩, an Eastern Ijoid language spoken in the Niger delta region of Nigeria, West Africa. The data gathered from competent native speakers via elicitation and participant observation was analyzed within the qualitative research design. The findings revealed that Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs five valency-changing operations. Processes for decreasing the valency of a verb include passive, reflexive, deletion of an internal argument, and demotion of an internal argument. To increase verb valency, Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs a morphological causative marker. The paper established that Nko̩ro̩o̩ utilizes both morphological and syntactic means of decreasing and increasing valency, and that the operation of valence is both derivational and inflectional.

The Indo-Iranian labial-extended causative suffix

Abstract Alongside the expected reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European causative suffix *-éi̯e/o-, there appears in Indo-Iranian a second, expanded version that contains a labial consonant: Indic -(ā)páya- and Eastern Iranian (EIr.) *-(ā)u̯ai̯a-, the latter continued in Khotanese -ev-, Khwarazmian -(’)wy-, and other modern EIr. languages. In this paper, we will argue that *-(ā)u̯ai̯a- is also the source of a causative marker in two closely related Caspian (Western Iranian) languages, Gilaki and Tati-Talyshi, through a reconstructable Proto-Caspian form *-āwēn-. We propose that these three suffixes, -(ā)páya-, *-(ā)u̯ai̯a-, and *-āwēn-, originated in Proto-Indo-Iranian, through the rounding of a root-final laryngeal to a labial sound in causative formations.

On noncausal/causal alternations in Tima (Nuba Mountains, Sudan)

Tima, a language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, uses three derivation markers (with various allomorphs) to either increase or decrease the valency of the verb. Middle voice and antipassive marking are used to reduce the valency. Causative marking may on the one hand increase the valency of monovalent verbs, while on the other hand it functions as an anticausative/passive marker for erstwhile transitive verbs. The distribution of these derivation markers across the formal alternation patterns augmentation, reduction, and double marking (as described by Nichols et al. 2004), is investigated in order to establish certain verb groups. Due to the peculiar behaviour of the causative marker, in that the device can be used to form a causal verb as well as a noncausal verb, the connection between causative and passive functions is further scrutinised by relating the Tima data to a grammaticalisation path, as suggested by Haspelmath (1990), from causative via reflexive-causative to passive. Tima deviates from this path: A reflexive-causative function is not attested; instead we find an anticausative function. The unlikely assumption that the Tima ergative construction originates from a further grammaticalisation of the causative-passive morpheme is also considered.

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.

Morphological causatives are Voice over Voice

Causative morphology has been associated with either the introduction of an event of causation or the introduction of a causer argument. However, morphological causatives are mono-eventive, casting doubt on the notion that causatives fundamentally add a causing event. On the other hand, in some languages the causative morpheme is closer to the verb root than would be expected if the causative head is responsible for introducing the causer. Drawing on evidence primarily from Tagalog and Halkomelem, I argue that the syntactic configuration for morphological causatives involves Voice over Voice, and that languages differ in whether their ‘causative marker’ spells out the higher Voice, the lower Voice or both.

Development of grammatical voice marking in Korean: On the causative, middle and passive uses of suffix -i

Voice-markers enable speakers to profile a situation/event in ways that reflect their perspective of ‘who’ or ‘what’ is being foregrounded as the discourse unfolds. Our diachronic study focuses on how a versatile voice marker evolves new functions as it competes for its semantic niche with other voice markers. Using data from Old Korean texts written in Kukyel and data from Middle and Modern Korean11Old Korean spans the period from the 8th to 13th century, Middle Korean from the 14th to16th century, Modern Korean from the 17th to 19th century, and Contemporary Korean from the 20th century to the present day. texts written in Hankul from the Sejong historical corpus, we show how Korean suffix -i extends from causative to middle and passive uses through reflexive causatives while competing with voice markers -eci and -key ha-. Our analysis reveals: (i) a relaxation of telicity and specificity constraints, which facilitates the extension of -i from a valence-increasing causative marker to a valence-reducing spontaneous and facilitative middle marker, and (ii) deployment of innovative morphosyntactic strategies (e.g. ‘double causatives’, ‘double passives’ and ‘hybrid passives’) to disambiguate between causative and passive uses of -i. The difference in directionality for -eci constructions (middle-to-passive development) and for -i constructions (causative-to-middle plus causative-to-passive developments) also has implications for our understanding of the development of voice systems in other languages.

Non-Causative Effects of Causative Morphology in Chukchi

The paper discusses the main uses of a synthetic causative marker in Chukchi with special reference to non-causative effects of causative morphology. The causative morpheme expresses general causation when attached to patientive intransitive and some agentive intransitive predicates, namely verbs of directed motion, change of posture and ingestion. Other agentive predicates, intransitive as well as transitive, resist causativization and receive some non-causative interpretation if they form causatives. Such causative verbs usually have applicative-like or rearranging functions.

Reliable Earlier and Causative Biomarker in newly Diagnosed Hypothyroid Cases—Vitamin D: A Case–control Study

ABSTRACT Background In Indian population there are 42 million people suffering from hypothyroidism. Hence, even though thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) has been used as the diagnostic marker of hypothyroidism, there arises a need to evaluate an earlier and a causative marker for hypothyroidism and thus it could be a better predictor of the disease in the earlier stages only. Aims and objectives The aim of the study is to identify a reliable earlier and one of the causative biomarkers of hypothyroidism. Materials and methods This study was conducted in 200 cases of newly diagnosed hypothyroidism and 200 controls of healthy individuals. Vitamin D, intact parathyroid hormone, TSH, triiodothyronine, thyroxine, and calcium were measured. Results It was observed that vitamin D was significantly decreased in hypothyroid cases. There was a negative correlation between vitamin D and TSH. Conclusion Vitamin D being one of the causative factors in thyroid disorders should be included as a routine parameter of analysis in hypothyroid cases and supplementation of vitamin D also to be initiated by the clinicians to avoid the progression to overt hypothyroidism in the newly diagnosed cases. How to cite this article Prabha AGT. Reliable Earlier and Causative Biomarker in newly Diagnosed Hypothyroid Cases‗Vitamin D: A Case–control Study. Indian J Med Biochem 2017;21(1):54-57.

Quasi-Causative Constructions in Mehweb

This paper investigates causative constructions in Mehweb, a lect of the Dargwa group of the East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) language family. In Mehweb, it is possible to build a causative construction by using a causative predicate and the predicate of caused action. Originally such verbs conveyed the meaning of physical causation of motion and left the causee on its own. Constructions of this kind do not qualify as canonical analytic (periphrastic) causatives, because they are not fully grammaticalized. I describe them as quasi-causatives. Usually, either a morphological or periphrastic causative marker is used in one utterance. Mehweb shows some evidence for double causative marking by combining a separate verbal form as the main causative predicate with a dependent verbal form which is marked with a morphological causative affix, producing only one causative meaning.

Causative constructions in Ainu: A typological perspective with remarks on the diachrony

AbstractThere are productive (-re/-e/-te, -yar/-ar) and non-productive(-V, -ke, -ka) causatives in Ainu. Non-productive causatives have traditionally been regarded as ‘transitives’, but proposing a revision of Tamura’s model of verbal structure in Ainu, this paper argues that they can be regarded as direct causatives, though causatives in-Vdo not have the same derivational status and should rather be regarded as lexical causatives. A cross-dialectal comparison shows that the causative function of-kais gradually being replaced by the productive causative-re/-e/-tewhich came to be used as a default causative marker of direct/indirect causation. Three of five causative morphemes originated in the verbs ‘make’ and ‘do’; all of them have also been attested with the denominal causative function, which suggests the following general pattern for the development of causatives in Ainu:do/make>denom>dir caus>(indir caus).

Structures of the Mandarin gei constructions

This paper argues for a “generalized” ditransitive analysis for the Mandarin gei constructions. The element gei ‘give,’ like the corresponding elements in many other languages, can assume a variety of uses, serving for instance as a ditransitive verb, a dative marker, a beneficiary marker, a causative marker, and so on. Different analyses have been proposed for these uses of gei. This paper argues that, despite the different uses, gei remains a ditransitive verb, and the specific meanings of gei are derived from the structures in which it occurs and the semantics of the elements that co-occur with it.

Preposisi dalam Bahasa Kaili

Bahasa Kaili adalah bahasa yang digunakan di Sulawesi Tengah. Sebagai bahasa daerah, bahasa Kaili memegang peranan penting dalam kehidupan masyarakat Kaili. Oleh karena itu, bahasa Kaili sebagai bahasa daerah, perlu dipelihara dan dilestarikan. Berdasarkan hal tersebut penelitian ini bertujuan untuk (1) mendeskripsikan dan mengetahui bentuk preposisi dalam bahasa Kaili dan (2) mendeskripsikan fungsi preposisi dalam sebuah kalimat dalam bahasa Kaili. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode cakap dengan teknik dasar yaitu teknik pancing dan teknik lanjutan yaitu teknik cakap semuka. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa bentuk preposisi dalam bahasa Kaili terdiri atas dua macam, yaitu preposisi tunggal dan preposisi gabungan. Preposisi tunggal terdiri atas preposisi berupa kata dasar dan preposisi yang berprefiks. Preposisi gabungan terdiri atas preposisi yang berdampingan, preposisi yang berkorelasi, dan preposisi nomina lokatif. Fungsi preposisi dalam bahasa Kaili yaitu sebagai penanda hubungan tempat, penanda hubungan maksud, penanda hubungan cara atau alat, penanda hubungan waktu, penanda hubungan sebab, penanda hubungan tujuan, dan penanda hubungan perbandingan.

Obligatory control and event structure in Kavalan

The embedded verb of so-called object-control verbs in Kavalan must be affixed with the causative marker pa-. It is argued that such control predicates in Kavalan like pawRat ‘force’ feature an internal Logophoric Center in its complement clause and this property of logophoricity is absent in other control predicates. Moreover, control predicates that do not take a causativized verb complement like paska ‘try’ and tud ‘teach’ are restructuring predicates and are thus devoid of a Fin head in their complement that can be linked to an internal Logophoric Center. In contrast, the TP and CP of the complement of pawRat ‘force’-type predicates are still projected and active. The causativization of the embedded verb in a control sentence cannot be explained by a purely syntactic or semantic account of obligatory control. Instead, a comprehensive and satisfactory explanation for Kavalan obligatory control must take into account how event structure and Logophoric Center are encoded in Syntax.

Problems with primary vs. secondary grammaticalization: the case of East and mainland Southeast Asian languages

The present paper aims at testing four criteria for the distinction between primary vs. secondary grammaticalization in East and mainland Southeast Asian languages. These languages are of special interest for research on grammaticalization because they show limitations in the coevolution of meaning and form and because pragmatic inference is very prominent (lack of obligatory grammatical markers, multifunctionality). If the four criteria work in these languages, this can be taken as a good indicator for their cross-linguistic, maybe universal relevance.The criteria are tested with three markers that stand for three different types of multifunctionality: (i) the Khmer verb baːn ‘come to have’ as a marker of various tense–aspect–modality functions, (ii) the Khmer verb ʔaoy ‘give’ in its functions of an adposition (coverb), causative marker, adverbial subordinator and complementizer and (iii) numeral classifiers as markers of definiteness as well as indefiniteness. As will be shown, the four criteria offer a mixed picture and even yield some contradictory results as far as the distinction of primary vs. secondary grammaticalization is concerned. This will lead to the final question of whether one has to reckon with areal differences in the properties of grammaticalization.

Origin of the Zapotec Causative Marker*k-: A Diachronic-Typological Perspective

This paper uses synchronic and diachronic typological data to trace the origin and development of the Zapotec causative marker *k-. It is suggested that the causative marker *k- arose as a language-internal innovation after Zapotec split away from its sister branch, Chatino. The paper relies on Song’s (1996) typology of causative marker formation to show that the causative prefix *k- has developed out of the marker of the potential mood following de-subordination of the subordinate clauses of purpose. This work contributes to the field of Zapotecan linguistics, by tracing the evolution of an important pan-Zapotec morpheme, and to that of diachronic typology (e.g., Bickel 2007), by validating a proposed developmental sequence in the area of valence-related morphology.

Kalmyk causative constructions: case marking, syntactic relations and the speaker’s perspective


 
 
 This study is primarily concerned with the syntactic organisation of Kalmyk clauses headed by verbs that contain a morphological causative marker. The data reported here have been compiled during the summers between 2006 and 2008 in the Republic of Kalmykia. The fieldwork was organised by St. Petersburg State University and the Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
 This fieldwork has been conducted in several villages in the North-Western part of the Republic of Kalmykia. This region is supposed to be the area where the Dörböt dialect of the Kalmyk language is spoken; however, there is no clear indication that the data discussed below are different from the facts found in standard Kalmyk in any relevant respect.
 The main objective of the study reported here is two-fold. First, there is a descriptive goal. Available descriptions of Kalmyk causatives are mostly concerned with morphological issues and case assignment in canonical causative constructions, whereas a deeper analysis of syntactic properties of causative constructions, especially of their non-canonical uses, is generally lacking. The present study is intended to partially fill this gap.
 Second, there is a more theoretical goal. It will be shown that there are essential properties of Kalmyk causatives that can be hardly captured by the usual derivational approaches to causatives. Rather, causative verbs in Kalmyk will be viewed as a device for establishing a more or less direct correspondence between an event’s participants and syntactic slots. Although the scope of this paper is limited to one individual language, its findings can have broader typological relevance. In particular, I believe that taking the speaker’s perspective into account can deepen our understanding of causative constructions in other languages as well.
 
 

Causative Marking in Resígaro (Arawakan): A Descriptive and Comparative Perspective

The aim of this paper is twofold: The first and major aim is to contribute to the grammatical description of the underdescribed and severely endangered Arawakan language Resígaro, spoken in Colombia and Peru, by providing a description of the intricate morphophonology and of the morphosyntactic patterns of causative marking in this language. In doing so, this paper also treats some general grammatical characteristics of the language, such as tone and argument marking. The Resígaro causative marker is used to increase the valency of both intransitive and transitive verbs. The causative objects of causativized verbs are the only syntactically obligatory objects in the language. The second, more minor aim of this paper is a brief comparison of the Resígaro causative marker with cognate forms in the related Arawakan languages Achagua, Piapoco, and Tariana. This reveals syntactic and semantic parallels that point to a close association of causativization and transitivity in this group of languages. This type of causatives contrasts with so-called sociative causatives of Southern Amazonia.

Population-ethnic group specific genome variation allele frequency data: A querying and visualization journey

National/ethnic mutation databases aim to document the genetic heterogeneity in various populations and ethnic groups worldwide. We have previously reported the development and upgrade of FINDbase (www.findbase.org), a database recording causative mutations and pharmacogenomic marker allele frequencies in various populations around the globe. Although this database has recently been upgraded, we continuously try to enhance its functionality by providing more advanced visualization tools that would further assist effective data querying and comparisons. We are currently experimenting in various visualization techniques on the existing FINDbase causative mutation data collection aiming to provide a dynamic research tool for the worldwide scientific community. We have developed an interactive web-based application for population-based mutation data retrieval. It supports sophisticated data exploration allowing users to apply advanced filtering criteria upon a set of multiple views of the underlying data collection and enables browsing the relationships between individual datasets in a novel and meaningful way.

Pure unaccusatives with Hoo I in Taiwan Southern Min

In Taiwan Southern Min, pure unaccusatives, which do not demonstrate causative alternation, can occur with hoo 7 i 1 to denote adversity. In the literature, hoo 7 is considered to have various usages including verb, causative marker, passive marker, etc. This paper proposes that hoo 7 in the hoo 7 i 1 pure unaccusative construction serves as an adversative marker. This hoo 7 is obligatorily followed by the pronoun i 1 , which is expletive and nonreferential, and may occur in the overt or covert form. The hoo 7 i 1 sequence functions as an optional adjunct and is used to denote adversity. The hoo 7 i 1 construction must occur in a sentence denoting change of state; thus, a resultative verbal complement or a resultative clause is often used in the hoo 7 i 1 construction. However, verbs/compounds that denote change of state can also satisfy this semantic requirement, and in this case, no extra resultative elements are needed.