Causatives: From lexicon to syntax

Conclusion

By exploring the correspondences ofhacer withordenar on the one hand, and withhacer itself in simplex structures, we have derived some of the most intriguing properties of Causative structures with respect to word-ordering, theta marking, the case marking processes without appealing to exceptional transformations or structures in order to develop our analysis. The apparently exceptional position of the Controller was derived naturally from the parameter which correlates Controller positions with subject positions and the observation that inverted Controllers coincide with inverted subjects in Romance languages. The definition of the Extended Governing Category, independently needed in other Long Clitic Movement environments, has helped account for the transparency of Causative complements. The ergative structures, yielding accusative case marking, have been explained in the light of an analysis independently needed forparecer; furthermore, ergatives cannot be embedded below dative controllers because this would require movement of PRO into the embedded subject position which is impossible because they lack INFL.

Lack of INFL (which appears to be semantically linked to implicative verbs, a set which Causatives belong to), is responsible for most of the features that make Causatives appear as syntactically deviant. It accounts for the obligatory adjacency of the Causative complement and the matrix verb as well as for the obligatoriness of Long Clitic Movement; it explains the complementary distribution of Pattern A and Pattern B and the curious patterning which distinguishes passives embedded under Causatives from passives in inflected environments, bringing Causative complements closer to nominalizations.

All in all, this analysis shows that a simpler image may be obtained — and a clearer one — if we consider Causative complements as a unique bridge between lexicon and syntax, the privileged component where INFL emerges.