The Causative alternation in the Khūri dialect

Authors

Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The causative alternation is a transitivity alternation between a causative verb and its anti-causative counterpart. Concerning the relationship between the two variants, two general approaches have been taken by linguists: derivational and non-derivational. In the derivational approach, it is supposed that one of the variants is basic and the other one derived. In the intransitive base approach (causativisation), the anti-causative is considered basic and the causative derived. In the transitive base approach (anti-causativisation), however, the causative is considered basic and the anti-causative derived. In the non-derivational or common base approach there is no direct relationship between the two variants but both come from a third source or root. The aim of this article is to critically evaluate the above-mentioned approaches in the light of morphologically marked alternating verbs in the Khūri dialect __ a Northwest Iranian language spoken in the Central Desert of Iran. The morphological evidence in Khūri shows that the derivational approaches to the causative alternation do not have a general analytic strategy and can only account for the morphological marking of the causative or anti-causative variant. On the contrary, the non-derivational common base approach covers the areas of variation in Khūri (one of the two variants or both of them could be marked) and can explain this morphological variation inclusively.

Keywords

Journal of Iranian Dialects & Linguistics
Volume 4, Issue 1
September 2019
Pages 1-25

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History

  • Receive Date: 24 April 2018
  • Revise Date: 14 August 2018
  • Accept Date: 12 January 2019

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