Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs

Abstract

Against past analyses, we propose that natural language causatives do not universally encode a single, unanalyzable bringing about meaning like Dowty’s (1979) CAUSE, but instead draw on an inventory of contrasting causal dependency relations. To illustrate this claim, we focus on the English causative verbs make and cause. We point out a number of differences in their inferential profiles, and argue that these follow from the fact that cause asserts a relation of causal necessity between a cause and its stated effect, while make asserts causal sufficiency. We distinguish these notions from their alethic counterparts: while causal necessity is similar to the notion of counterfactual necessity (Lewis 1973), causal sufficiency has not figured in previous analyses of causal language. We show that analyzing make as a sufficiency causative not only accounts for the similarities and differences between its distribution and that of cause, but also enables us to explain previously puzzling inferences associated with the use of make as opposed to other periphrastic causatives.

On the resilience of obligatory control in inflected infinitives under object control verbs

“…pointed out, the sentence could have a continuation such as the following: Given this type of definition, it is natural to include obrigar 'force', as well as convencer 'convince' or persuadir 'persuadir', in the set of causative verbs -in fact, Shibatani & Pardeshi (2002) treat cause, persuade and force as causatives, but causatives which retain their literal meaning, in contrast with the semantically bleached get, make or have. The idea of a causative continuum is akin to the position maintained by Nadathur & Lauer (2020) that different causatives express different causal relations and therefore that no unitary view of causation is desirable: "causation, at least as it is encoded in language, cannot be captured by a single type of dependency relationship, but instead reflects an umbrella notion, compris ing a set of contrasting 'bringing-about' relations" (Nadathur & Lauer, 2020: 30).…”

Exhaustification in the semantics of <em>cause</em> and <em>because</em>

“…It could have taken Road A instead. If this explanation is correct, it implies that 15 That being said, Nadathur & Lauer (2020) propose that counterfactual dependence is not enough for a sentence containing make -such as "Gurung made the children dance" to be true. They do, however, propose that counterfactual dependence, together with the cause and effect both occurring, is enough for a sentence containing cause to be true.…”

Causal emergence is widespread across measures of causation

“…Causation should be viewed not as an irreducible single relation between a cause and an effect but rather as having two dimensions: that of sufficiency and necessity [1,30].…”