Causation in Grammatical Structures [Hardcover]

This book brings together research on the topic of causation from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. It draws on data from a wide range of languages and seeks to arrive at a more sophisticated understanding of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings, and how those meanings are organized into structures.This book brings together research on the topic of causation from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. It seeks to arrive at a more sophisticated understanding both of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings, and how those meanings in turn are organized into structures. Chapters address some of the most exciting current issues in the field, including the relata of causal relations; the representation of defeasible causation within verb phrases and at the level of modality; the difference between direct and indirect causal chains; and the representation of these chains in syntax.The book examines data from a wide variety of languages, such as Tohono O'odham, Finnish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi, and Karachay-Balkar, and will be of interest to syntacticians and semanticists, as well as psycholinguists and philosophers, from graduate level upwards.1. Introduction,Bridget Copley and Fabienne MartinFrom Causal Theories to Causal Meanings2. Theories of causation can and should inform linguistic theory,Bridget Copley and Phillip Wolff3. Formal semantics for causal constructions,Richmond H. Thomason4. Two types of causal statements,Max Kistler5. Force dynamics in causal meaning and reasoning,Phillip Wolff6. Eliminating causative entailments with the force-dynamic framework: The case of the Tohono O'odham frustrative cem,Bridget Copley and Heidi Harley7. Modality and causation: Two sides of the same coin,Tatjana Ilic8. Intentional action and the semantics of gradable expressions (on the Knobe Effect),Paul Egre