Two Types of External Argument Licensing – The Case of Causers*

Abstract

Abstract. This article argues that the thematic licensing of causer arguments is not a strictly lexical property but depends on the event configuration within the verbal phrase. The central observation leading to this conclusion is that three morphosyntactically different types of causer‐DPs are subject to the same licensing condition: they are licit only in the context of a bi‐eventive, resultative event structure. This licensing constellation is not only provided by lexically bi‐eventive verbs, but also by overt syntactic composition of a mono‐eventive verb with a secondary result predicate where the mono‐eventive verb does not license causers on its own. The latter constellation argues against coding causer‐roles in a verb’s lexical entry. Instead, it argues for an account that assumes event decomposition of lexically resultative verbs and some version of a configurational θ‐theory. Concentrating on existing syntactic versions of such an account, it is shown that they need to be updated to cover the set of data presented in this paper. A central claim put forward is the need to dissociate the verbal layers introducing causative‐resultative event structure (which acts as thematic licenser of causers) from those layers introducing external arguments syntactically (formal licensers). Concerning the latter, it is shown that causers, although thematically external arguments, are not necessarily introduced by a Voice projection on top of the verbal predicate.

On dative causers in Hungarian

“…The paper proceeds along this argumentation as follows. In section 2, I show that Hungarian dative causers can be three-way ambiguous in exactly the same way as has been reported by Schäfer (2008Schäfer ( , 2012 and Ganenkov et al (2008) for the languages mentioned above. However, what is felt to be the most marked reading in other languages, often turns out to be the most easily accessible reading in Hungarian.…”

“…It has been noted for German oblique causers that they may have manage-readings (see Schäfer 2012 and Martin & Schäfer to appear), and Davis et al (2009) make the same observation for the so called 'out of control'-morphology in St'at'imcets. But, unlike in Hungarian, these constructions are restricted to specific verbal classes (typically to anticausative/decausativized verbs), and they have several readings, of which the manage-reading is not the most easily accessible one.…”

“…Consequently, many of the dative causer constructions that we have discussed can in particular be ambiguous between the causation reading and what is known in the literature as the affectedness reading (beneficiary/maleficiary datives). Kallulli (2006) and Schäfer (2012) raise the question whether this semantic variation is the result of true ambiguity or vagueness, and they both conclude that the two uses are grammatically distinct. Hence the dative causer -affected dative ambiguity is a real ambiguity, and the dative causer construction is indeed a distinct construction on its own right.…”

“…I present here three further arguments that each favour the ambiguity analysis. Each builds on the logic that Kallulli (2006) and Schäfer (2012) follow, namely that one or the other reading may be ruled out in specific constructions. This fact is easy to accommodate within the ambiguity view.…”

Building verbs in language mixing varieties

“…Compositional resultatives are built as follows, see also (Embick 2004). I assume as in Schäfer (2012) that v takes as its complement a complex phrase, xP or root in the structure above, labeled ResultP, following e.g. Ramchand (2008), see (30).…”