Causatives in the languages of the Volga-Kama Region

Abstract

Abstract Turkic and Uralic languages of the Russian Volga-Kama Region share a strong preference for transitivization over detransitivization (in contrast to Russian), leading to wide usage of causative derivational suffixes. These tendencies are typical for Turkic and Uralic however and do not necessarily require a contact-linguistic explanation. However, microvariation in causative constructions in these languages and their dialects show convergence between unrelated or distantly related varieties – i.e., strong indicators of contact-induced convergence. This paper looks at such facets in three Uralic (Mari, Udmurt, Komi-Permyak) and two Turkic (Tatar, Chuvash) languages of the region.