Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). The semantics of English causative constructions in a universal-typological perspective. In Michael Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure: Vol. 1 (pp. 113-153). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Reissued as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). The semantics of English causative constructions in a universal-typological perspective. In Michael Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure: Vol. 1 (pp. 105-142). London: Psychology Press.
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Семантика английских каузативных конструкций в универсально-типологической перспективе. In Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna], Семантические универсалии и описание языков, под ред. Татьяна В. Булыгиной [Semantic universals and the description of languages, ed. Tatyana V. Bulygina] (pp. 171-223). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
(Modified) excerpt:
This chapter seeks to elucidate the differences in meaning between different causative verbs like to cause, to force, to make, to get, to let, and so on and to analyse the complex interplay between different relevant factors (the category to which the causer belongs, the category to which the causee belongs, the category to which the predicate of the complement clause belongs, the causative verb chosen in a given sentence, and so on). To do so successfully, we do not need any formidable technical formalisms. Nor do we need to endlessly concern ourselves with the perennially contested issue of how (or even if) syntax can be combined with semantics. Rather, what we need is an analytical framework in which syntax and lexical semantics are integrated from the very beginning.
The overall picture produced by an analysis that pays attention to all the relevant factors is, admittedly, complex and intricate much more so than one that operates only with tree diagrams and other similar formalisms; but it is, I believe, the only kind of analysis that can achieve descriptive adequacy and explanatory power. It is language itself that is immensely complex. At the same time, if we allow that all languages may have a relatively simple irreducible core, we can use this irreducible core of all languages as a basis for an understanding of the immensely complex and diverse systems that all human languages are.
Syntactic typology that deliberately closes its eyes to the semantic dimensions of formal diversity of languages is, ultimately, sterile and unilluminating. Opening typology to semantics may involve difficulties, but rather than avoiding them, it is surely more fruitful to sharpen our analytical tools and to develop safeguards of various kinds. Above all, we need a semantic metalanguage for a cross-cultural comparison of meanings, whether they are encoded in the lexicon or in grammar. As, I hope, this chapter illustrates, the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” based on empirically established universal concepts can meet this need.
