Abstract
In this paper we offer an analysis of the so-called causative SE construction exemplified by sentences like Juan se afeita en la barbería (‘Juan gets a shave at the barbershop’). Even though these sentences look like ordinary reflexive constructions, the subject is not interpreted as an agent, but as a causer who initiates an event whose agent is implicit. For instance, in the sentence above, the barber is the agent of the shaving event, not Juan. We propose that this unique interpretation arises only in certain transitive configurations that involve change of state semantics and intrinsic reflexivity. This syntactic configuration, coupled with extra-linguistic knowledge about causal chains, accounts for the syntactic and semantic properties of causative SE constructions.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that this differs from the use of the term “factitive” in English, where the standard definition of a factitive verb is one with a small clause complement which represents the result of the verbal action, as in The idiots elected him president.
- 2.
There has been some debate over the years as to whether the implicit agentive argument in passive SE constructions is syntactically projected; for an analysis which proposes that this is indeed the case, see MacDonald (2017).
- 3.
Note that (3a) is from peninsular Spanish (the official website of the Dirección General del Tráfico), and the speakers who were consulted on the felicity of (11b) vs. (11c) are all peninsular speakers. In contrast, at least some of the Latin American speakers we consulted also rejected (11c). See Sect. 5.
- 4.
This contrasts, for example, with Italian, which systematically disallows the clitic si under the causative verb fare (Burzio 1986).
- 5.
In general terms this puts us in agreement with Otero (1999), who briefly considers the causative vs. agentive interpretation of a sentence such as Juan se afeita (en la peluquería/en casa) ‘John shaves (at the salon/at home), stating that the causative originates in a transitive structure, while the other is an intrinsic reflexive.
- 6.
French is perhaps what the authors of the relevant section of the RAE (2009) grammar had in mind, in referring to the necessity of paraphrase “en las otras lenguas romances” for causative se.
- 7.
The judgments in (38) are based on two informants, both from France and both researchers in linguistics, although not in theoretical syntax. One of them did accept the sentence in (38b)—hence the ‘%’—although she indicated that it could also be paraphrased with causative faire.
- 8.
The numbers after each word represent lexical tones.
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Armstrong, G., Kempchinsky, P. (2021). Causative SE: A Transitive Analysis. In: Armstrong, G., MacDonald, J.E. (eds) Unraveling the complexity of SE. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 99. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57004-0_9
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