Generalidades de la industria del biodiésel e impacto ambiental

A causative derivation is rather common, occurring in very many—but not in all—languages. The basic characteristics of a prototypical causative are:

3.20 changing valency169 Prototypical Causative Derivation (applying to an intransitive clause)

(a) Applies to an underlying intransitive clause and forms a derived transitive.

(b) The argument in underlying S function goes into O function in the causative.

(c) A new argument (the causer) is introduced in A function.

(d) There is some explicit formal marking of the causative construction. This may be a morphological process applying to the verb which is predicate head; or the language may employ periphrastic means (for example, the make construction in English, as in She made him run). Causative applies to intransitive verbs in every language in which it is found, sometimes only to intransitives. In a number of languages it is used with just a few transitive verbs—typically ‘eat’ and ‘drink’—in other languages with many. There is considerable variation concerning what happens to underlying A and O in the causative of a transitive. The causer is always A. The original A may be the new O with the original O becoming a peripheral argument; or the original O may stay as is, with the original A becoming a peripheral argument. There are several other possibilities, all set out in Dixon (2000).

Some languages have several causative derivations, each with its own mean- ing. The contrasts may be direct or indirect causation, accidental or inten- tional, natural or with effort. The referent of the underlying A argument may be got to perform the action willingly or unwillingly. These and other semantic parameters are described and exemplified in Dixon (2000).

The basic characteristics of a prototypical applicative derivation are: Prototypical Applicative Derivation (applying to an intransitive clause)

(a) Applies to an underlying intransitive clause and forms a derived tran- sitive.

(b) The argument in underlying S function goes into A function in the applicative.

(c) A peripheral argument (which could be explicitly stated in the under- lying intransitive) is taken into the core, in O function.

(d) There is some explicit formal marking of the applicative construction, generally by a morphological process applying to the verb which is predicate head.

There are significant differences from causative. Under (d), applicative is normally marked by a morphological process to the verb, whereas causative is often shown periphrastically. And in a causative the introduced argument (the

causer, in A function) is unlikely to have been includable in the underlying intransitive clause.

When an applicative derivation applies to an intransitive clause, the under- lying S becomes A and some peripheral argument is promoted to have core status, as O. There is a variety of types of applicative, according to which type of peripheral argument is taken into the core. A comitative applicative involves an argument originally in comitative (‘with’) function becoming O. For example, in the Australian language Yidiñ:

(5) intransitive marun-øs cloud-absolutive gada-N come-present (bana-mujay) rain-comitative The cloud is coming (with rain)

(6) comitative

applicative mar:un-ducloud-ergativea bana-ørain-absolutiveo gada:-Na-l

come-applicative-present The cloud is coming-with rain

In (5), bana ‘water, rain’ is an optional peripheral constituent, marked as comitative. In the derived transitive clause, (6), bana is an obligatory core argument, in O function. (Note that present tense has allomorphs -N and -l.)

Other types of applicative derivation relate to different kinds of peripheral argument being promoted into the core. They include:

intransitive applicative

locative ‘He_{s sat (on a chair)’} ‘He_{a sat-on [a chair]o’} communicative ‘Shes talked (to the child)’ ‘She_{a talked-to [the}

child]_o’

aversive ‘He_{s is-scared (of the snake)’ ‘Hea is-scared-of [the} snake]_o’

Whereas a causative only applies to transitives in a limited set of languages (and then often only to a few transitive verbs), an applicative derivation typically also applies to transitive clauses. The A argument stays as is, an erstwhile peripheral argument becomes O, and the original O is now coded on the periphery. A typical applicative applying to a transitive clause is the instrumental variety, something like:

transitive applicative

instrumental ‘Hea sealed [the bag]o ‘Hea sealed-with waxo

(with wax)’ (on the bag)’

3.21 topic and pivot 171 In some languages a single morphological process may mark causative with verbs of certain semantic types and applicative with verbs of other types. Where a language has distinct markings for passive, antipassive, causative, and applicative, it is sometimes the case that several of these derivations may apply, in sequence.

There are other processes that can change transitivity. When a noun is incorporated into a verb, the valency of the verb is sometimes reduced; see (1) in §3.13. And common ways of indicating that two core arguments have the same reference—reflexive—or are interchangeable—reciprocal—involve reducing valency; this is discussed in §3.22.

3.21 Topic and pivot

A unit of language activity may consist just of a sentence (which can be one clause or more). Or it may be a sequence of sentences, making up an utterance. Or a conglomerate of utterances (which may overlap) by a number of people taking part in a discourse. Such as the following, with speakers A, B, and C (here square brackets indicate constituents):

(1) A Have youa heard [the news [about John] ]o? (2) B __a resigned [his job]o

(3) C __s got sacked [by the old devil], if you ask me (4) B No, hes really did resign

(5) A __cs always was a bit daft (6) C __cs like his father

These utterances are linked by the fact that they are all talking about John, which is the ‘topic’ of this stretch of discourse. John is stated just in 1, and then in an NP marked by a preposition, about John, within the O NP, the news about John, of the verb heard. The topic is understood to be subject for each of (2–6), shown by pronoun he in (4) and left unstated (indicated by __) in (2–3) and (5–6). The topic is in A function in (2), it is S of a derived get-passive construction in (3), and is in S in (4) and in CS (copula subject) function in (5– 6). (In (6) the copula is is also omitted.) ((1–6) represent a typical discourse in colloquial spoken English. In the written mode either a pronoun (he) or John would have to be included in each of the __ blanks.)

An argument of a clause is topic if it is coreferential with an argument of a clause which is immediately (or almost immediately) preceding or following. In some languages, any core argument may be topic in each clause. But a fair

number of languages have grammatical conditions on what may be topic. The term ‘pivot’ is used for a grammatically defined topic.

There are two common types of pivot: