Article

Name: Causative constructions with volitional verbs in the Buryat and Russian languages

Authors: E. A. Dadueva

Buryat Institute of Infocommunications (Branch) of the Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Informatics, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to determine some characteristics of the functioning of causative verbs of volitional influence in the Buryat and Russian languages and to define their place in the verbal system. In the Russian and Buryat languages, causative verbs of emotional, volitional, and physical impact are identified. These verbs constitute an extensive class of content causative verbs in both Russian and Buryat languages, with volitional impact being expressed only by a small group of verbs: dat’, pozvolit’, zastavit’, prikazat’, velet’, prosit’, prinuzhdat’ (to give, to allow, to force, to order, to request, to coerce), etc. Semantically, their main characteristic is the designation of a potential, desired, causal action in the Russian language by means of an infinitive, and in the Buryat language – a participle. We consider the verbs of volitional action as auxiliary for the formation of syntactic causative constructions, i. e. functioning as a syntactic causative in the Russian language. This group of volitional verbs is a special group of causative verbs possessing a number of features that make them different from the causative verbs of physical and emotional impact. Their distinctive features are the absence of non-causal correlates in Russian and Buryat languages and some grammatical differences. The characteristic feature of the Buryat language is the possibility of expressing a volitional impact with one lexeme, not common in the Russian language. We have also noted that auxiliary causative verbs can lose the volitional meaning when combined with an inanimate causer and an inanimate object of influence.

Keywords: causative verb, polypredicative construction, volitional impact, factitive causation, permissive causation

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