ChiShona periphrastic causatives as syntactic complex predicates: An HPSG analysis

Mugari, Victor; Kadenge, Maxwell

doi:10.1080/02572117.2014.949473

Cited by 1 publication

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References 11 publications

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“…We have argued in previous sections separately that both passivisation and causativisation yield nested argument structures, so an analysis that pits them both within one utterance would be insightful to linguistic theorising. Furthermore, passivisation proves the monoclausality of a complex predicate and the objecthood of the causee (Mugari and Kadenge 2014). Manning and Sag (1995, 27) argue that, 'causative structures vary as to whether passivisation of the causative can lead to the causee becoming the subject or the lower object becoming the subject'.…”

Section: Causativisation and Passivisationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The major objectives are to establish the typology of chiShona passives and to determine whether or not they involve complex predication. This research was prompted by the conclusions made on causative constructions (Mugari 2012a;2012b;Mugari and Kadenge 2014) that they constitute complex predication. It became necessary to scrutinise a fellow valence altering morpho-phono-syntactic process with the view of drawing parallels, especially against a background that causatives are valence increasing while passives are valence decreasing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Theoretical aspects of the chiShona passive

Mugari¹

2015

Language Matters

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This paper analyses passivisation in chiShona within the Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) theoretical framework. We treat passives as operations on the argument structure of a verb, represented as a nested list just like causatives. We describe passive typology and explicate its morpho-syntactic characteristics with regards to complex predication. We conclude, in contradistinction to the valence altering causative counterpart that, though passives are complex morphologically, on the overall, they are not complex predicates. Our conclusions are based on the unavailability of aktionsart alternations, lack of event modification and the inability to be accounted for through argument composition. We reveal that chiShona intransitives passivise, which is evidence that passivisation is a backgrounding rather than foregrounding operation. We examine the relationship between passives and causatives, discovering that different passivisation possibilities are available, which depend on whether the causative type is morphological or periphrastic. Wellformed constructions are accounted for through HPSG formalism and the semantic meta-theory Lexical Resource Semantics constraint satisfaction mechanisms.

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Section: Causativisation and Passivisationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%