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Part of
Advances in Iranian Linguistics II
Edited by Simin Karimi, Narges Nematollahi, Roya Kabiri and Jian Gang Ngui
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 361] 2023
► pp. 263–281

Chapter 10
Semi-anticausatives

| Seoul National University

Based on data from Persian, this study argues that what I refer to here as “semi-anticausatives” behave like a canonical unmarked anticausative with respect to the agentivity tests. However, further investigation shows that they appear with a voice head. This is contrary to the previous assumption that unmarked anticausatives do not constitute a voice head (Schäfer 2008; Alexiadou et al. 2015). I argue that semi-anticausatives, among other things, may license hidden “agentive causers”.

Keywords: voice, anticausatives, semi-anticausatives, unintentional adverbs, topic –râ, indirect causation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1voice and voice typology
    • 1.2Problems with current accounts of anticausatives in Persian
  • 2.Semi-anticausatives in Persian
  • 3.Proposal and analysis
    • 3.1Topic -râ in semi-anticausatives
    • 3.2Unintentional adverbs in semi-anticausatives
    • 3.3Intentionality and indirectness of causation in semi-anticausatives
    • 3.4Analysis
  • 4.Summary of results
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.361.10kas
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