On causatives – A comparison between European Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

Based on the caused eventuality, causation can be subdivided into causation of an activity and causation of change of state. By analyzing how causatives are expressed in European Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese, this study shows that these two languages exhibit quite a lot of differences in expressing causation of change of state. We have observed that quite many Portuguese verbs which intrinsically involve causative meanings do not have Chinese equivalence in simplex verb forms – their Chinese counterparts often take complex forms, including a construction we call “Causative Resultative V-Vs” (CR V-Vs). Difference is also found in the derivation direction: whereas anticausation plays a big role in Portuguese, causation is the main process in Chinese. We attribute the contrast to different expressing powers of verb roots in the two languages: while Portuguese verb roots are able to express complex meanings, Chinese roots mostly denote either a pure activity or a pure state/result.