Abstract
This study investigates formal and functional variation in analytic causatives (ACs) in eighteen European languages from the Indo-European and Uralic language families. Employing the comparative concept approach, the paper presents a probabilistic semantic map of the main functions of ACs on the basis of a multilingual parallel corpus of film subtitles. This method enables us to detect common dimensions of semantic variation in ACs and to pinpoint cross-linguistic commonalities in the form–meaning mapping. The paper also presents three case studies, which test previous hypotheses about the grammaticalization clines in Romance and Germanic and facts of language contact between German and Slavic languages. The role of language contact is further explored in quantitative analyses that compare how the languages “carve up” the semantic space of causation. The results of this comparison suggest that frequently occurring semantically vague ACs may be regarded as a feature of Standard Average European.
Acknowledgements
The author is very grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their useful feedback and constructive criticisms and to Hubert Cuyckens for his numerous insightful suggestions. Of course, all remaining imperfections are the author’s own responsibility. This study was funded by the Belgian research foundation F.R.S. – FNRS, whose generosity is most gratefully acknowledged. All usual disclaimers apply.
Abbreviations
- Descriptive categories
- ad
adessive
- art
article
- comp
complementizer
- conj
conjunction
- cneg
connegative
- dat
dative
- fut
future
- imp
imperative
- inf
infinitive
- ipfv
imperfective
- neg
negation
- part
partitive
- PastPart
past participle
- pfv
perfective
- pl
plural
- prs
present
- pst
past
- refl
reflexive
- sbjv
subjunctive
- sg
singular
- V1st
(Fin.) 1st infinitive
- Vda
(Est.) -da-infinitive
- Ved
(En.) past participle
- Vfin
verb is a finite form
- Vill
(Fin.) 3rd infinitive in illative
- Vind
verb in indicative
- Vinf
infinitive
- Vinfl
(Por.) inflected infinitive
- Ving
(En.) present participle
- Vma
(Est.) -ma-infinitive
- Vsubj
verb in subjunctive
- Languages
- Bul.
Bulgarian
- Cz.
Czech
- Du.
Dutch
- En.
English
- Est.
Estonian
- Fin.
Finnish
- Fr.
French
- Ger.
German
- It.
Italian
- Hun.
Hungarian
- Nor.
Norwegian
- Pol.
Polish
- Por.
Portuguese
- Rom.
Romanian
- Rus.
Russian
- Sl.
Slovenian
- Sp.
Spanish
- Sw.
Swedish
Appendix
ACs found in the corpus
Indo-European, Romance
| French | Italian | Portuguese | Romanian | Spanish |
| autoriser à Vinf | costringere a Vinf | dar para Vinf | a convinge sǎVsubj | dejar Vinf |
| faire Vinf | fare Vinf | deixar Vinf | a face sǎVsubj | forzar a Vinf |
| forcer à Vinf | lasciare Vinf | deixarVinfl | a lǎsa sǎVsubj | hacer Vinf |
| laisser Vinf | permettere di Vinf | fazer VinffazerVinfl | a permite sǎVsubj | obligar a Vinf |
| obliger à Vinf | obbligare a Vinf | forçar a Vinf | a pune sǎVsubj | permitir Vinf |
| permettre de Vinf | obrigar a Vinf | |||
| permitir Vinf |
Indo-European, Germanic
| Dutch | English | German | Norwegian | Swedish |
| doen Vinf | allow to Vinf | bringen zum Vinf | få PastPartfå til å Vinf | få att Vinf |
| dwingen om te | force to Vinf | erlauben zu Vinf | la Vinf | låta Vinf |
| Vinf | get to Vinf | lassen Vinf | tillate å Vinf | tvinga att Vinf |
| laten Vinf | have Vinf | tvinge til å Vinf | ||
| have PastPart | ||||
| let Vinf | ||||
| make Vinf | ||||
| permit to Vinf |
Indo-European, Slavic
| Bulgarian | Czech | Polish | Russian | Slovenian |
| davam daVfin | dávat Vinf | dawać Vinf | davat’ Vinf | dati daVfin |
| karam daVfin | dovolovat abyVfin | pozwalać Vinf | pozvoljat’ Vinf | dati Vinf |
| nakarvam daVfin | nechávat abyVfin | zmuszaćVfin | razrešat’ Vinf | dopuščati Vinf |
| ostavjam daVfin | nechávat | zmuszać żeby | zastavljat’ Vinf | dovoliti daVfin |
| pozvoljavam daVfin | přimět Vinf | Vinf | dovoliti Vinf | |
| razrešavam daVfin | přinucovat abyVfin | zmuszać żeby Vinf | puščati daVfin | |
| přinucovat Vinf | Vinf | puščati najVfin | ||
| puščati Vinf | ||||
| siliti daVfin | ||||
| siliti Vinf |
Uralic, Finno-Ugric
| Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian |
| ajamaVma | antaaV1st | ended Vinf |
| andmaVda | kiristääVill | hagy Vinf |
| laskmaVda | päästääVill | kényszerít hogyVfin |
| lubamaVda | pakottaaVill | |
| panemaVma | pannaVill | |
| sundimaVma | saadaVill | |
| salliaV1st |
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Going beyond motion events typology: The case of Basque as a verb-framed language
- Let her rain, she’s snowing pretty good: The use of feminine pronouns with weather verbs in colloquial English
- On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations
- The interaction of vowel quality and pharyngeals in Sephardic Modern Hebrew
- Preferences and variation in word-initial phonotactics: A multi-dimensional evaluation of German and Polish
- European analytic causatives as a comparative concept: Evidence from a parallel corpus of film subtitles
- The effect of L1 regional variation on the perception and production of standard L1 and L2 vowels
- Book Reviews
- Christopher S. Butler & Francisco Gonzálvez-García: Exploring functional-cognitive space
- Kate Beeching & Ulrich Detges: Functions at the left and right periphery: Crosslinguistic investigations of language use and language change
- Miguel A. Aijón Oliva & María José Serrano: Style in syntax: Investigating variation in Spanish pronoun subjects
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Going beyond motion events typology: The case of Basque as a verb-framed language
- Let her rain, she’s snowing pretty good: The use of feminine pronouns with weather verbs in colloquial English
- On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations
- The interaction of vowel quality and pharyngeals in Sephardic Modern Hebrew
- Preferences and variation in word-initial phonotactics: A multi-dimensional evaluation of German and Polish
- European analytic causatives as a comparative concept: Evidence from a parallel corpus of film subtitles
- The effect of L1 regional variation on the perception and production of standard L1 and L2 vowels
- Book Reviews
- Christopher S. Butler & Francisco Gonzálvez-García: Exploring functional-cognitive space
- Kate Beeching & Ulrich Detges: Functions at the left and right periphery: Crosslinguistic investigations of language use and language change
- Miguel A. Aijón Oliva & María José Serrano: Style in syntax: Investigating variation in Spanish pronoun subjects