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Causation, Event Structure and Process Specifying Adverbials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Tavs Bjerre
Tavs Bjerre
Affiliation:
University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, DK-6000 Kolding, Denmark. E-mail: tavs@sitkom.sdu.dk
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Abstract

Based on data from Danish, this article examines various linguistic means of expressing causation. It is argued that inchoatives, causatives and accomplishments all denote situations in which one situation – subevent1, is construed as causing another – subevent2. Inchoatives and causatives are described as having different kinds of underspecified subevent1. The bulk of the article is concerned with an analysis of prepositional phrases of a type termed Process Specifying Adverbials, (PSAs). It is argued that PSAs serve to specify subevent1, and their behaviour is seen as corroborating the proposed analysis for inchoatives and causatives. The analysis is formalized within the framework of HPSG.

Type
Articles
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , June 2001 , pp. 29 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

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