Cross-Linguistic Causative Typology #
@cite{song-1996}
Song's typology of causative constructions, orthogonal to the
force-dynamic builder classification. This module classifies how
causative meaning is expressed (morphosyntactic packaging), while
CausativeBuilder classifies what causative meaning is (force-dynamic
mechanism).
Key Typology (§5.1-5.3) #
| Type | Structure | Implicative? | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| COMPACT | Vcause ⊕ Veffect fused | Yes | English kill, Turkish -dür |
| AND | Two clauses, sequential | Yes | Vata le |
| PURP | Two clauses, purposive | No | Korean -ke ha- |
The COMPACT type subsumes both lexical causatives (English kill) and morphological causatives (Turkish -dür, Japanese -ase, French faire).
Cognitive Structure (§5.3) #
All causative events involve: GOAL → EVENT → RESULT
- AND type highlights: EVENT + RESULT (factual sequencing)
- PURP type highlights: GOAL + EVENT (purposive, non-implicative)
- COMPACT type: entire sequence collapsed into single predicate
Morphosyntactic type of causative construction.
This is orthogonal to the force-dynamic builder: a .make builder
can be realized as COMPACT (English make), AND, or PURP depending
on the language.
compact: Cause and effect fused into a single predicate. Includes lexical (kill) and morphological (-dür, -ase) causatives.and_: Two clauses joined sequentially. Effect clause is factual.purp: Two clauses, with purposive semantics. Effect clause is non-implicative (not entailed to have occurred).
- compact : CausativeConstructionType
Cause + effect fused (lexical: kill; morphological: Turkish -dür)
- and_ : CausativeConstructionType
Two clauses, sequential (Vata le; effect is factual)
- purp : CausativeConstructionType
Two clauses, purposive (Korean -ke ha-; effect not entailed)
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Whether a causative construction type is implicative.
Implicative = the cause clause entails the effect clause.
- COMPACT: Yes — kill entails death occurred
- AND: Yes — sequential structure implies effect is factual
- PURP: No — purposive structure leaves effect open
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Morphosyntactic realization of the causative morpheme.
Within COMPACT causatives, the causal element can be realized as:
- A bound morpheme (Turkish -dür, Japanese -ase)
- A free morpheme forming a tight unit (French faire)
- A lexical fusion with no separable morpheme (English kill)
- suffix : CausativeMorphology
Bound morpheme (affix): Turkish -dür, Japanese -(s)ase
- freeMorpheme : CausativeMorphology
Free morpheme forming tight unit: French faire
- lexical : CausativeMorphology
No separable morpheme: English kill (lexical causative)
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A cross-linguistic causative construction datum.
- language : String
Language name
- form : String
Surface form or morpheme
- constructionType : CausativeConstructionType
Construction type in Song's typology
- morphology : Option CausativeMorphology
Morphological realization (for compact types)
- gloss : String
Gloss / translation
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- Phenomena.Causation.Typology.instBEqCausativeConstructionDatum.beq x✝¹ x✝ = false
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Cross-linguistic data #
English kill — lexical COMPACT causative (kill = cause-to-die)
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Turkish -dür — morphological COMPACT causative suffix
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Japanese -(s)ase — morphological COMPACT causative suffix
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French faire — COMPACT causative with free morpheme
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Korean -ke ha- — PURP-type causative (non-implicative)
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Vata le — AND-type causative (sequential, implicative)
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Implicativity theorems #
COMPACT causatives are implicative.
AND-type causatives are implicative.
PURP-type causatives are NOT implicative.
Per-datum verification: each datum's implicativity matches its type.
English periphrastic causatives are sequential (AND-type) per WALS 110A.
Turkish periphrastic causatives are purposive (PURP-type) per WALS 110A.
Korean periphrastic causatives are purposive (PURP-type) per WALS 110A,
consistent with the -ke ha- construction being PURP in Song's typology.
Korean's WALS 110A classification matches our datum's construction type.
English has nonperiphrastic (compact) causatives per WALS 111A.
English nonperiphrastic causatives are morphological per WALS 111A (corresponding to lexical causatives like kill).
Turkish has nonperiphrastic (compact) causatives per WALS 111A.
Turkish nonperiphrastic causatives are morphological (suffix -dür) per WALS 111A,
matching our datum.
Japanese has nonperiphrastic (compact) causatives per WALS 111A.
Japanese nonperiphrastic causatives are morphological (suffix -(s)ase) per WALS 111A,
matching our datum.
French has nonperiphrastic (compact) causatives per WALS 111A.
WALS classifies French as both (morphological and compound).
Korean has nonperiphrastic (compact) causatives per WALS 111A,
in addition to the periphrastic -ke ha- construction.
Korean nonperiphrastic causatives are morphological per WALS 111A.
WALS 110A total: 118 languages with periphrastic causative data.
WALS 111A total: 310 languages with nonperiphrastic causative data.
WALS 110A: 35 languages have sequential-only periphrastic causatives.
WALS 110A: 68 languages have purposive-only periphrastic causatives.
WALS 110A: 15 languages have both sequential and purposive.
WALS 111A: 254 languages have morphological-only nonperiphrastic causatives.
WALS 111A: 9 languages have compound-only nonperiphrastic causatives.
WALS 111A: 24 languages have both morphological and compound.
WALS 111A: 23 languages have neither morphological nor compound.
Purposive periphrastic causatives (PURP-type) are the dominant pattern cross-linguistically, outnumbering sequential (AND-type) roughly 2:1.
Morphological causatives overwhelmingly dominate nonperiphrastic strategies: 254 out of 310 languages (82%) have morphological-only.