Involvee causatives in Turkish

Abstract

In this study, we investigate a morphologically but not semantically causative construction in Turkish, which we label ‘involvee causative’ (InvC). In contrast to regular causative, the external argument in InvCs is not interpreted as an agent or causer but as merely being involved in or experiencing the event. Additionally, InvCs also differ from regular causatives in not licensing agent-oriented adverbs, instrument phrases and passivization. In previous research, failure of these diagnostics to apply has been taken as evidence for an unaccusative structure. However, we argue against such an analysis for InvCs and show that the latter contain a thematic Voice head. The above diagnostics, we conclude, are sensitive not only to the syntactic status of the external argument but also to its semantic properties, and are licensed only if the argument receives an agentive interpretation.