Against a low subject analysis of causatives of unergatives

Authors

  • Eva Neu University of Massachusetts Amherst

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5527

Keywords:

causatives, unergatives, variable unaccusativity, low subject, syntax-lexicon interface, Hindi-Urdu, Turkish, Arabic

Abstract

Contrary to the long-standing assumption that the causative alternation is limited to unaccusative verbs, direct causatives of unergatives have recently been attested in a variety of languages (Massam 2009; Legate 2014; Nash 2017, 2021; Tollan 2018; Tollan & Oxford 2018; Kouneli 2021; Myler 2022; Krishnan & Sarma 2023). The question raised by these causatives is how the causee is realized syntactically and semantically. I argue that in Hindi-Urdu, Turkish and Sason Arabic, direct causatives of unergatives are regular transitives in which the causee is merged as an internal argument assigned a patient θ-role. I propose that such structures are built by coercing the normally unergative verb into an unaccusative use in causative environments, reflected in a deagentivized construal of the causee. I show that this analysis is preferable to a competing proposal according to which the subject of the intransitive unergative and the causee of the causativized variant are both merged in SpecvP. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that the causative alternation is limited to unaccusative verbs, direct causatives of unergatives have recently been attested in a variety of languages (Massam 2009; Legate 2014; Nash 2017, 2021; Tollan 2018; Tollan & Oxford 2018; Kouneli 2021; Myler 2022; Krishnan & Sarma 2023). The question raised by these causatives is how the causee is realized syntactically and semantically. I argue that in Hindi-Urdu, Turkish and Sason Arabic, direct causatives of unergatives are regular transitives in which the causee is merged as an internal argument assigned a patientθ-role. I propose that such structures are built by coercing the normally unergative verb into an unaccusative use in causative environments, reflected in a deagentivized construal of the causee. I show that this analysis is preferable to a competing proposal according to which the subject of the intransitive unergative and the causee of the causativized variant are both merged in SpecvP.

Downloads

Published

2023-04-27

How to Cite

Neu, Eva. 2023. “Against a Low Subject Analysis of Causatives of Unergatives”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 8 (1): 5527. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5527.