Causative verb
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A causative verb is a verb with an argument that expresses the cause of the action described by the verb.
Examples
In (i)-(iii) let, make, and cause are causative verbs; John refers to the cause of Bill's eating grass.
(i) John let Bill eat grass (ii) John made Bill eat grass (iii) John caused Bill to eat grass
Comments
A certain class of verbs alternate between a causative reading and an inchoative reading. Examples are break, drown and De-adjectival verbs formed with the suffix -en in (iv) - (vii).
INCHOATIVE CAUSATIVE (iv) The vase broke John broke the vase (v) The lady drowned Our tenant drowned a lady (vi) The canal widened They widened the canal (vii) The tomatoes reddened The sun reddened the tomatoes
Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics
References
- Borer, H. 1990. Derived nominals and the causative-inchoative alternation: two case studies in parallel morphology. Ms. UC Irvine.
- Grimshaw, J. 1990. Argument Structure. Cambridge, Mass: MIT-press.
- Jackendoff, R. 1990. Semantic Structures. Cambridge: MIT-Press.