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In:Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization
Edited by Guglielmo Inglese, Giulia Mazzola and Eugenio Goria
[Typological Studies in Language 138] 2026
► pp. 249–286

Chapter 9
Noncausatives vs. anticausatives

Towards a comparative analysis of Italian and Spanish

 | The University of Manchester
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Through comparative analysis of Italian and Spanish, I propose a method to investigate microvariation in the causative alternation in Romance. Taking a lexicalist perspective, I maintain that microvariation cannot be properly understood unless it is assumed that alternating verbs can figure in the intransitive as noncausative or causative verbal stems, the causative stems requiring anticausativization (causer suppression) in this domain. The contrasting behaviour of the scrutinised lemmas depends on the roles of the parameters [±definite change] and [±direct cause] in each language. In Spanish {−direct cause, +definite change} causative stems can anticausativize and figure as SE marked intransitives, while in Italian anticausativization is avoided with the same class. I propose an account of anticausativization in the two languages, highlighting the role of middle voice in the microvariation observed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The causative alternation in Romance: Brief overview
    • 2.1Noncausatives vs. anticausatives: The case of Italian
      • 2.1.1Preliminaries
      • 2.1.2Change, causation and anticausativization
      • 2.1.3The three verb classes (+se, ±se, −se)
  • 3.A comparative survey of nine Italian and Spanish lemmas
    • 3.1The survey
    • 3.2The incidence of anticausative se
    • 3.3The microvariation in the Constructional Schemas
    • 3.4The problem of false synonymy
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (82)
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