The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation (review)

This book, one of the latest additions to the literature on the causative construction, consists of fifteen papers. The introductory chapter (1–22) by Masayoshi Shibatani discusses some basic issues in the grammar of causation. In ‘Cooperation and interpersonal manipulation in the society of intimates’ (23–56), T. Givón and Phil Young outline ‘the social context within which manipulative speech-acts and thus manipulative grammatical constructions arise in languages of traditional small-scale societies’ (25). In ‘Verbs of interpersonal causality and the folk theory of mind and behaviour’ (57–83), Bertram F. Malle offers a conceptual framework that integrates the semantics and social function of interpersonal verbs.

‘The causative continuum’ (85–126), by Masayoshi Shibatani and Prashant Pardeshi, is by far the most ambitious paper in the volume. It attempts to redefine the direct/indirect distinction in causation and argues for the category of ‘sociative’ causative situated between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ causation on the causative continuum.

Michel Achard’s ‘Causation, constructions, and language ecology: An example from French’ (127–55) is essentially a cognitive grammar analysis of the French analytic causatives. The paper by Ricardo Maldonado and E. Fernando Nava L. is on ‘Tarascan causatives and event complexity’ (157–95). The language has at least four causative suffixes that select for specific stem classes. In ‘Some constraints on Cora causative constructions’ (197–244), Verónica Vázquez Soto argues that the formal grammatical device of causation in Cora (Southern Uto-Aztecan) correlates with a systematic semantic property. As in many other languages, ingestive verbs in Cora display unique grammatical properties with respect to causativization processes (228).

In ‘Olutec causatives and applicatives’ (245–99), Roberto Zavala shows that this Mixe-Zoquean language has two causative prefixes, the selection of which depends on the transitivity of the verb—following a very common crosslinguistic pattern. Michel Launey’s ‘On some causative doublets in Classical Nahuatl’ (301–17) offers a detailed investigation of the distribution of causative forms associated with transitive verbs. ‘The notion of transfer in Sikuani causatives’ (319–39), by Francesc Queixalós, deals mainly with the Sikuani equivalent of the periphrastic ‘make’ causative. In ‘Causative constructions in Akawaio’ (341–71), Anatol Stefanowitsch shows that Akawaio lacks productive causative morphology and that causation is expressed periphrastically. In ‘Causation in Matses (Panoan, Amazonian Peru)’ (373–415), David W. Fleck discusses causative situations and claims that the causative construction in Matses codes a ‘nonprototypical’ causation. The chapter by Pilar M. Valenzuela is on ‘Causativization and transitivity in Shipibo-Konibo (Panoan)’ (417–83). In this language the roots are inherently intransitive or inherently transitive and change of valency is encoded by explicit morphosyntactic devices. In ‘Causatives in Asheninka’ (485–506), David Payne argues that Asheninka provides evidence for the development of causatives from the sociative construction. The last paper, ‘Guaraní causative constructions’ (507–34) by Maura Velázquez-Castillo, argues that there is a causative cline based on the notion of ‘directness’—from the lexical causative (most direct and integrated) to the syntactic causative (least direct and integrated).

This is undoubtedly a fascinating volume for the connoisseur of causative constructions. Overall, the papers are clearly written and provide a wealth of information on causatives mostly from languages that traditionally have not been prominent in the literature on transitivity and valency.