Re: QUERY: The Japanese causative form and the English infinitive.
- From: Bart Mathias <mathias@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:31:25 GMT
mirror wrote:
Hello,
In English, the causative form uses the bare infinitive or the infinitive: "I also made Sara walk."
The same request in Japanese uses a verb extension: "Boku mo Sara ni arukaseta."
What grammatical function does "arukaseta" perform, since making someone do something in the Japanese language involves, in this form, omitting the word "make"? Is this really of the adjective family (the "made walking Sara")?
It's very likely that the "s" of "-(a)seru" is etymologically the same one as in "suru," and "suru" can certainly be "make" when necessary.
I picked this last fragment example because it seems Japanese
verbs can take on an adjectival flavor ("Mado ga aite iru" and
"Mado ga akete aru," for example), describing the *state* of
something rather than the action performed.
"Adjectival flavor" is probably not a good phrase, since "adjective" is primarily a grammatical, rather than a semantic(al?), term. How about something like "stative" or "durative"? The former is traditionally applied to both verbs and adjectives.
To be sure, there are verbs that are only stative/durative. "aru," "iru," "sugure-ta/-te (iru)," etc.
But causatives are active (until you stick, say, a "-te aru" on the end), so even allowing "adjective" semantically, they aren't members of any adjective family. Just regular verbs, as are the passives.
Regarding "nekaseru" and "nesaseru," usually a so-called causative is ambiguous between "make s.o. (do)" and "let s.o. (do)." but I find that in my perhaps too-gagaiginish Japanese, "making lie down/putting to bed" and "letting lie down/letting sleep" are distinct.
That is, I can imagine saying "kodomowo (muriyarini) kuzini nekaseta" but not "tarooha sakuban osokumade okitetakara, mousukosi nekasenayo." And "kujini nesaseta" from my lips would mean I finally relented and let him go to bed before he finished scrubbing the floors or whatever.
Bart
Is the Japanese causative sensed purely as a verb by an NSoJ? For that matter, is the Japanese passive sensed purely as a verb?
Thank you!
Paul
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