[Kre12] — Causativization as Antireflexivization

Krejci, Bonnie. 2012. Causativization as Antireflexivization: A Study of Middle and Ingestive Verbs. Master's Report, University of Texas at Austin.

Core claims

1. Middles (wash, dress; agent acts on their own body, [Kem94]) and ingestives (eat, drink; agent directs a consumed substance at themselves, with learn proposed as a metaphorical ingestive, a class label from [NS73]) are lexically reflexive: their simple forms have bieventive causative event structure with coidentified causer and causee — her (37), e.g. eat = [[ACT⟨manipulate food⟩(x)] CAUSE [BECOME ⟨potentially digest⟩(x, y)]].

2. Antireflexivization (§4.2, (96)–(97)): the lexical causative splits the coidentified argument into two participants (eat→feed, learn→teach; wash and dress reuse the same form transitively). Feed ≠ make eat: with eat the eater must agentively manipulate food; with feed that entailment shifts to the feeder; with make eat it stays on the eater (§4.2.1).

3. Five diagnostics detect CAUSE in the English simple forms: the three [Dow79] complexity tests — again ambiguity, re- prefixation, and almost ambiguity (§4.3) — plus negation over CAUSE (§4.4) and by itself (§4.5, after [Chi04]). All five come out positive for all four verbs, with hedges: some speakers reject the restitutive reading of John washed again (her fn. 8), and the negation evidence is offered as "tentative", with I didn't eat any pie marked "?" ((106a)).

4. The causativizability hierarchy — unaccusatives > middles/ingestives > unergatives > simple transitives — is implicational, and none of the 32 surveyed languages skips a tier; twelve are tabulated in Table 2.8 (krejciLanguages). The dedicated middles/ingestives tier is the report's typological contribution. (Her second, morphological evidence base — Marathi -aw causativization, her Section 5 — is not formalized here.)

Main declarations

• LexReflexiveVerb, allVerbs — the four English verbs with their observed diagnostic profiles and IntransitivizationType analysis
• reflexivePrediction, observed_matches_reflexive_analysis — the reflexive analysis predicts every diagnostic positive, matching the observations
• krejciLanguages, hierarchy_holds — Table 2.8 and its implicational check

Lexically reflexive verbs

inductive Krejci2012.LexReflexiveSubtype : Type

Subtype of lexically reflexive verb. Middles: agent acts on their own body ([Kem94]: one internally complex participant; her §4.1). Ingestives: agent causes a substance to enter themselves, including "metaphorical ingesting" ([NS73], her Table 2.5) such as learn.

• middle : LexReflexiveSubtype
• ingestive : LexReflexiveSubtype

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveSubtype : DecidableEq LexReflexiveSubtype

Equations

• Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveSubtype x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveSubtype : Repr LexReflexiveSubtype

Equations

• Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveSubtype = { reprPrec := Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveSubtype.repr }

def Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveSubtype.repr : LexReflexiveSubtype → ℕ → Std.Format

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

structure Krejci2012.DiagnosticProfile : Type

Observed outcomes of the five CAUSE diagnostics for one verb's simple form (§4.3–4.5). Each field is a recorded English judgment, cited to the report's examples at the verb entries below.

• again : Bool

  Postverbal again has restitutive + repetitive readings ([Dow79]; (70)–(73)).

• rePrefix : Bool

  re- prefixation yields a restitutive reading ((76)–(82)).

• almost : Bool

  almost scopes over action vs. result sub-event ((85)–(88)).

• negationOverCause : Bool

  The simple form can be logically negated while the causative variant is asserted, NPI-controlled against metalinguistic negation (§4.4, (106)–(109); after [KG09]).

• byItself : Bool

  by itself "without outside help" is licensed (§4.5, (114); after [Chi04]).

def Krejci2012.instDecidableEqDiagnosticProfile.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : DiagnosticProfile) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

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@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instDecidableEqDiagnosticProfile : DecidableEq DiagnosticProfile

Equations

• Krejci2012.instDecidableEqDiagnosticProfile = Krejci2012.instDecidableEqDiagnosticProfile.decEq

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instReprDiagnosticProfile : Repr DiagnosticProfile

Equations

• Krejci2012.instReprDiagnosticProfile = { reprPrec := Krejci2012.instReprDiagnosticProfile.repr }

def Krejci2012.instReprDiagnosticProfile.repr : DiagnosticProfile → ℕ → Std.Format

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

structure Krejci2012.LexReflexiveVerb : Type

A lexically reflexive verb: bieventive causative event structure with coidentified causer and causee in the simple form, per her (37).

• gloss : String
• subtype : LexReflexiveSubtype
• lexicalCausative : Option String

  Suppletive lexical causative (antireflexivized form), none when the same form serves transitively (wash, dress).

• intransType : Causation.Morphological.IntransitivizationType

  [Kre12]'s analysis of the simple form: the causer position is retained, coidentified with the causee.

• observed : DiagnosticProfile

  Observed diagnostic outcomes for the simple form.

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveVerb : DecidableEq LexReflexiveVerb

Equations

• Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveVerb = Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveVerb.decEq

def Krejci2012.instDecidableEqLexReflexiveVerb.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : LexReflexiveVerb) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveVerb.repr : LexReflexiveVerb → ℕ → Std.Format

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveVerb : Repr LexReflexiveVerb

Equations

• Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveVerb = { reprPrec := Krejci2012.instReprLexReflexiveVerb.repr }

def Krejci2012.eat : LexReflexiveVerb

eat: ingestive. [[ACT⟨manipulate food⟩(x)] CAUSE [BECOME ⟨potentially digest⟩(x, y)]] ((37a)); lexical causative feed (§4.2.1).

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Krejci2012.wash : LexReflexiveVerb

wash: middle. [[ACT⟨manipulate water⟩(x)] CAUSE [BECOME ⟨washed⟩(x)]] ((37b)); the transitive is the same form, antireflexivized (§4.2.2).

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def Krejci2012.dress : LexReflexiveVerb

dress: middle. [[ACT⟨manipulate clothes⟩(x)] CAUSE [BECOME ⟨dressed⟩(x)]] ((37c)); the transitive is the same form, antireflexivized (§4.2.3).

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Krejci2012.learn : LexReflexiveVerb

learn: proposed metaphorical ingestive. [[ACT(x)] CAUSE [BECOME ⟨know⟩(x, y)]] ((37d)); lexical causative teach (§4.2.4).

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def Krejci2012.allVerbs : List LexReflexiveVerb

Equations

• Krejci2012.allVerbs = [Krejci2012.eat, Krejci2012.wash, Krejci2012.dress, Krejci2012.learn]

Observed diagnostics match the reflexive analysis

def Krejci2012.reflexivePrediction : DiagnosticProfile

What the reflexive analysis predicts: bieventive structure supplies the result state the three [Dow79] tests scope over, and the retained (coidentified) causer supplies CAUSE for negation and by itself. Cells are derived from the substrate's IntransitivizationType.reflexive facts, not stipulated.

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theorem Krejci2012.observed_matches_reflexive_analysis (v : LexReflexiveVerb) : v ∈ allVerbs → v.intransType = Causation.Morphological.IntransitivizationType.reflexive ∧ v.observed = reflexivePrediction

The report's empirical core: all four verbs are analyzed as reflexive intransitivizers, and their observed diagnostic profiles are exactly what that analysis predicts. A single false observation would falsify the .reflexive typing.

theorem Krejci2012.suppletive_iff_ingestive (v : LexReflexiveVerb) : v ∈ allVerbs → (v.lexicalCausative.isSome = true ↔ v.subtype = LexReflexiveSubtype.ingestive)

Antireflexivization is suppletive exactly for the ingestives (eat→feed, learn→teach); the middles reuse the same form transitively (§4.2).

Root entailments and templates

Her (37) puts CAUSE in the simple forms of eat and dress; the substrate's [BKG20]-style root classification agrees in carrying cause: both roots are causativeResult ({state, result, cause}). The point of contact is the presence of CAUSE, not its source — for [Kre12] the causer is the coidentified agent itself, and she argues explicitly against deriving the causative by adding an external causer ((93) vs. (96)–(97)). learn's root is still the substrate's conservative minimal placeholder, so the bridge is stated for eat and dress only.

The accomplishment template licenses an intransitive (achievement) variant, yet *"The food ate" / *"The clothes dressed" are out: on [Kre12]'s account the alternation slot is already occupied — the simple form is the reflexive variant, and the causative is derived from it by antireflexivization rather than by adding CAUSE to an inchoative core.

theorem Krejci2012.eat_is_causativeResult : ArgumentStructure.LevinClass.eat.rootEntailments = Verb.Root.Kinds.causativeResult

eat roots carry caused-consumption entailments.

theorem Krejci2012.dress_is_causativeResult : ArgumentStructure.LevinClass.dress.rootEntailments = Verb.Root.Kinds.causativeResult

dress roots carry caused dressed-state entailments.

theorem Krejci2012.causativeResult_entails_cause : Verb.LexKind.cause ∈ Verb.Root.Kinds.causativeResult

causativeResult roots carry the cause kind — CAUSE is in the simple form, as her (37) requires.

theorem Krejci2012.eat_licenses_accomplishment : ArgumentStructure.ArgDerivation.RootLicensesTemplate ArgumentStructure.LevinClass.eat.rootEntailments ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.accomplishment

eat roots license the accomplishment template.

theorem Krejci2012.eat_primary_accomplishment : ArgumentStructure.ArgDerivation.primaryTemplate ArgumentStructure.LevinClass.eat.rootEntailments = some ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.accomplishment

eat's primary template is accomplishment.

theorem Krejci2012.eat_roleList_is_consumption : ArgumentStructure.LevinClass.eat.roleList = some ArgumentStructure.consumption

eat's RoleList is consumption (agent + incremental theme).

theorem Krejci2012.accomplishment_has_variant : ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.accomplishment.intransitiveVariant = some ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.achievement

The accomplishment template has an intransitive variant (achievement).

theorem Krejci2012.alternation_preserves_result : ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.achievement.HasResultState

The intransitive variant retains the result state (instance of intransitive_has_resultState).

theorem Krejci2012.alternation_loses_cause : ¬ArgumentStructure.EventStructure.Template.achievement.HasCause

The intransitive variant loses CAUSE on the deletion analysis (instance of intransitive_no_cause).

Causativizability hierarchy (Table 2.8)

unaccusatives > middles/ingestives > unergatives > simple transitives. Implicational: a causative morpheme that reaches a lower tier reaches every higher one, and none of the 32 surveyed languages skips a tier. Twelve are tabulated in Table 2.8, three per type: Type 1 (unaccusatives only) Slave, Mapudungun, Classical Nahuatl; Type 2 (+ middles/ingestives) Cora, Marathi, Amharic; Type 3 (+ unergatives) Ahtna, Tariana, Malayalam; Type 4 (+ simple transitives) Basque, Dulong/Rawang, Koyukon. The dedicated middles/ingestives tier between unaccusatives and unergatives is the report's typological contribution. Malayalam is grouped with Type 3 although its morpheme reaches transitives with an instrumental-case causee (her fn. 6).

structure Krejci2012.CausativizabilityData : Type

Which verb classes one language's morphological causative applies to (one row of Table 2.8).

• language : String
• morpheme : String
• unaccusative : Bool
• middlesIngestive : Bool
• unergative : Bool
• simpleTransitive : Bool

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instDecidableEqCausativizabilityData : DecidableEq CausativizabilityData

Equations

• Krejci2012.instDecidableEqCausativizabilityData = Krejci2012.instDecidableEqCausativizabilityData.decEq

def Krejci2012.instDecidableEqCausativizabilityData.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : CausativizabilityData) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Krejci2012.instReprCausativizabilityData.repr : CausativizabilityData → ℕ → Std.Format

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• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

@[instance_reducible]

instance Krejci2012.instReprCausativizabilityData : Repr CausativizabilityData

Equations

• Krejci2012.instReprCausativizabilityData = { reprPrec := Krejci2012.instReprCausativizabilityData.repr }

def Krejci2012.CausativizabilityData.respectsHierarchy (d : CausativizabilityData) : Bool

The hierarchy is implicational: each level implies all higher levels. simpleTransitive → unergative → middlesIngestive → unaccusative.

Equations

• d.respectsHierarchy = ((!d.simpleTransitive || d.unergative) && (!d.unergative || d.middlesIngestive) && (!d.middlesIngestive || d.unaccusative))

def Krejci2012.krejciLanguages : List CausativizabilityData

Table 2.8: twelve languages, ordered from narrowest to broadest causative scope.

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theorem Krejci2012.hierarchy_holds : (krejciLanguages.all fun (x : CausativizabilityData) => x.respectsHierarchy) = true

All twelve Table 2.8 languages respect the implicational hierarchy.