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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 45:2 (2021) ► pp.470–498

Caused-Motion and Caused-Position

Syntactic patterns and semantic networks

ORCID logo | Hong Kong Polytechnic University
| City University of Hong Kong

According to Goldberg (1995), placement verbs (such as put) are instantiated in the Caused-Motion Construction. Rohde (2001), however, argued that placement verbs in fact occur in a different construction, which she names the Caused-Position Construction, whose semantic value is not ‘cause to move’ but rather ‘cause to be positioned’. The present paper redefines and justifies the postulation of Caused-Position Construction. The Caused-Position Construction is compatible with not only placement verbs but also a variety of other verbs, such as verbs of creation (write or build) or certain stative verbs (want or need), many of which also occur in the Locative Inversion construction. Further, a similar distinction between Caused-Motion and Caused-Position can be attested in Mandarin as well, which suggests that the distinction between two patterns of spatial causation may not be idiosyncratically confined to the English language but motivated by the general patterns of human cognition.

Keywords: Construction Grammar, Caused-Motion Construction, Caused-Position Construction, Locative Inversion, polysemy, English, Mandarin
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
  • 3.Research goals
  • 4.Locative Inversion
    • 4.1Locative Inversion and Caused-Position
    • 4.2Locative Inversion and Caused-Motion
    • 4.3Summary
  • 5.The polysemy of the two constructions
    • 5.1The polysemy of the Caused-Motion
    • 5.2The polysemy of the Caused-Position
      • 5.2.1Conditions of satisfaction imply
      • 5.2.2Cause-Enable
      • 5.2.3Cause-Prevent
      • 5.2.4Cause-Aid
      • 5.2.5Cause-Perceive
    • 5.3PP-collocation of polysemous Caused-Position Verbs
    • 5.4Summary
  • 6.Caused-Motion and Caused-Position in Mandarin
    • 6.1Background
    • 6.2Hypothesis
    • 6.3Methodology
    • 6.4Results
    • 6.5Summary
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.18067.joo
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