An Updated Typology of Causative Constructions: Form-Function Mappings in Hupa (California Athabaskan), Chungli Ao (Tibeto-Burman) and Beyond

Taking up analytical issues raised primarily in Dixon (2000) and Dixon & Aikhenvald (2000), this dissertation combines descriptive work with a medium-sized (50-language) typological study./nChapter 1 situates the dissertation against a concise survey of typological-functional work on causative constructions from the last few decades, and outlines the major research questions./nChapter 2 presents a case study of causative encoding in Hupa (California Athabaskan). I describe the morphosyntax and semantics of the Hupa syntactic causative construction, and analyze its/ndistribution with respect to Dixon's (2000) proposals for a typology of causative constructions. I demonstrate that causee control (Dixon's parameter 3) over the caused microevent is a significant/nsemantic factor in licensing this construction. I show that Næss' (2007) model of transitivity as a set of semantic prototypes, as applied to causative event participants, nicely accounts for other/naspects of the distribution--particularly, why some events can be encoded in a causative construction, while other, quite similar, events must be encoded in a result clause or purpose/nclause. I end with an examination of how Hupa encodes causal chains within single lexical items, bringing together a small corpus study and a case study of Hupa encoding of cutting and breaking/nevents./nChapter 3 presents a case study of causative encoding in Chungli Ao (Tibeto-Burman). I offer a description of Chungli Ao's morphological and periphrastic causative constructions, and analyze/ntheir distribution with respect to Dixon's (2000) model, showing that directness of causer action (Dixon's parameter 6) can determine the choice between a lexical causative (where one is available), and a non-lexical causative construction. I present an in-depth case study of Chungli Ao encoding of cutting and breaking events, including a discussion of the semantics and distribution of several lexical suffixes and the elements of the causal chain they encode. Also/ndiscussed are syntactic alternations systematically available to CUT-class verbs and BREAK-class verbs, respectively./nChapter 4 moves away from language-specific case studies, and turns to crosslinguistic research in order to address some broader research questions about universal tendencies in the encoding of/ncausative relationships. I bring a new, larger body of empirical evidence to bear specifically on 2 Dixon's (2000) account of the formal and semantic factors influencing (or forcing) a speaker's/nchoice of one causative construction over another. Dixon's (2000) claims about prototypical patternings of compact vs. less compact constructions are not well-supported: in order for the claims to be well-supported, the values of Dixon's nine parameters would have to be correlated in individual languages at a statistically significant frequency. Parameter 5 (partially versus completely affected causee) was not found to be crucially encoded at all in a sample of 114/nconstructions from 50 languages. Parameters 7 (causer intentionality), 8 (naturalness of causer action) and 9 (causer accompanying or not accompanying causee) nearly always occur in isolation. The one instance of a solid correlation among parameter values (with a sample of more than 10 relevant pairing events) was that between parameters 3 (causee control) and 4 (causee/nwillingness). These two parameters were correlated: they were encoded together at particular values (both low or both high), or were both systematically absent, at a statistically significant/nfrequency. Since, in general, Dixon's proposed semantic parameters tend not to co-occur, the study shows that it is not feasible to model the distribution of causative constructions around/nnotions of semantic prototypicality. A much larger sample may show Dixon to be correct in his proposal regarding correlations between values of semantic parameters, but the current findings/nsuggest that his nine parameters are not likely to pattern together in subgroups. I conclude the chapter by presenting a series of constructions, encountered in the course of compiling the/ntypological sample, that obligatorily encode other semantic information along with causativity. I note potential patterns and propose questions for research to build on my typological study./nChapter 5 summarizes the contributions of the dissertation, and recapitulates various proposals for further study.

Advisor: Sweetser, Eve E