{"id":262,"date":"2017-12-22T07:44:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T07:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/kingsenglishsociety\/?p=262"},"modified":"2017-12-22T07:44:10","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T07:44:10","slug":"causative-theme-in-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/kingsenglishsociety\/causative-theme-in-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Causative theme in English"},"content":{"rendered":"

by David Wulstan<\/strong>
\nThe causative is found in Hamito-Semitic languages and in Sanskrit; but it is not often\u00a0acknowledged as occurring in Indo-European languages generally. Crystal (Cambridge Enc.\u00a0of Language, 93) calls the causative a tense, a description which Semitic scholars would\u00a0certainly dispute. Jespersen (Essentials of Eng. Gramm., p.117), in discussing the difference\u00a0between the transitive and intransitive use of verbal forms, points out that certain transitive\u00a0verbs (\u2018to grow corn\u2019), when used intransitively (\u2018corn grows\u2019), \u201cmust be considered a\u00a0causative\u201d.<\/p>\n

He goes on to list \u201ctwo cases [where] we have separate verbs for the intransitive and the\u00a0corresponding transitive (causative) use\u201d, instancing sit, sat, sat and lie, lay, lain (intrans) as\u00a0against set, set, set and lay, laid, laid (trans. = causative). The matter is, however, more\u00a0complicated than Jespersen supposed in his somewhat confused treatment.\u00a0 Granted that in various registers of speech (including that of the poets) these forms are\u00a0sometimes confused (J cites Byron\u2019s \u2018there let him lay\u2019), there are reasons for such\u00a0misprisions: those of us who mistake \u2018he was hung at Tyburn\u2019, for the correct \u2018he was\u00a0hanged\u2019 deserve some sympathy: the morphology and syntax are by no means clear. This is\u00a0because thematic and \u2018strong\u2019 causatives have a system of ablaut, which is extremely\u00a0confusing in modern English, for these forms often sound like the past tense or participle of\u00a0the ordinary verbal theme.<\/p>\n

To define the causative: oremus is \u2018let us pray\u2019 in Latin. Although Latin exhibits some\u00a0instances, the language as we know it does not typically have a causative theme; so the\u00a0subjunctive mood is used here, instead. In classical Greek, this or the optative mood might\u00a0have been be used (although Greek, too, had a few separate causatives). In Hebrew, however,\u00a0the causative theme proper would come into play, the significance of which would more\u00a0accurately be rendered \u2018cause us to pray\u2019. In English, the foregoing phrase is not a thematic\u00a0causative, as it is formed from a modal verb. Similarly, \u2018make that horse canter\u2019 is\u00a0syntactically but not morphologically causative.<\/p>\n

It might be argued that \u2018waken\u2019, \u2018gladden\u2019, and so on are thematic causatives, the -en being a causative suffix, as \u2018envision\u2019, \u2018entrap\u2019 have apparent causative prefixes. I do not know the\u00a0answer as to whether these (or \u2018glorify\u2019, \u2018mesmerise\u2019 and the like) are thematic causatives,\u00a0but for the moment they will be excluded. True, Sanskrit nayati \u2018lead\u2019 has the causative\u00a0n\u0101yayati \u2018cause to lead\/to be led\u2019, but it is regular. So far as may be divined, the English\u00a0(deriving from the Germanic) causative theme is based on vowel-gradation similar to that\u00a0found in \u2018strong plurals\u2019 (mouse-mice).<\/p>\n

When set is used as the causative of sit, it derives, as the OED says, from the OE (s\u0119ttan)\u00a0and Gothic (satjan), causative of *setjan (sitjan), whence also settle, verb and noun (these,\u00a0and one or two further references to OE etc, are due to the OED\/NED) If one \u2018sets\u2019 the table,\u00a0however, the phrase is a species of synecdoche, meaning that the setter is causing the silver and glass to \u2018sit\u2019 in its appropriate place.<\/p>\n

Other uses of \u2018set\u2019 as in \u2018setting the Maths Paper for the Upper Set\u2019) are not really related.\u00a0Curiously, the Latin s\u0115deo, s\u0113di, sessum means \u2018to sit\u2019 whereas s\u0113do, -\u0101vi, -\u0101tum is causative,\u00a0\u2018to settle\u2019. All of these words (including Greek cognates) are related to Sanskrit (in which, by\u00a0chance \u2018sit\u2019, \u0101s, is not recorded in its causative form). What the dictionaries (and Jespersen)\u00a0do not tell us, however, is that sat may also be causative: \u2018I sat him down\u2019. It is this usage\u00a0which gives rise to the solecism, \u2018I was sat in the corner\u2019 i.e. sitting rather than having been\u00a0unceremoniously made to sit.<\/p>\n

That \u2018lay\u2019 is the causative of \u2018lie\u2019 is acknowledged by the dictionaries (to lay a hedge or an\u00a0egg is to cause it to lie); to lay down one\u2019s life is a more metaphorical locution, but hardly\u00a0obscure. A coin may have lain under hedge or hen, but it was caused to lie by whomsoever\u00a0left it there, accidentally or not: the problems arise with speaking of the past, as to whether the\u00a0coin was laid or layed.<\/p>\n

Similarly, to fell a tree is to cause it to fall. But if the woodman fell, his falling to the ground would have been an accident, perhaps occurring when the tree had already been felled. So it\u00a0befell (this time with a prefix) that he had to recover from his fall. Latin has c\u0103do, c\u0115c\u012ddi,c\u0101sum for \u2018to fall\u2019, but caedo, c\u0115c\u012bdi, caesum for the causative. Ordinary ablaut makes \u2018wend\u2019
\n(OE wenden) the causative of \u2018wind\u2019 (winden \u2013 in the sense of following a winding path).<\/p>\n

The verb \u2018rise\u2019 (rising, rose, had risen) has two causatives, \u2018to raise\u2019 (raising, raised, had\u00a0been raised) and to \u2018rouse\u2019 (rousing, roused, had been roused \u2013 the British Army bugle call\u00a0for \u2018Rouse\u2019 differed from that of \u2018Reveille\u2019). Here the morphology is reasonably\u00a0straightforward, but with the proviso that the forms \u2018arise\u2019 and \u2018arouse\u2019 lurk in the wings:\u00a0 indeed, a connexion with hawking is the origin of \u2018rouse\u2019 (probably Anglo-Norman). To\u00a0\u2018drench\u2019 in the agricultural sense of \u2018cause (a sheep) to drink\u2019 is more technical (Dryden says\u00a0A Drench of Wine \u2026 the Patient\u2019s Death did cause); it may be surmised that \u2018ferry\u2019\u00a0developed similarly as a specialised term in connexion with \u2018fare\u2019 in the sense of \u2018travel\u2019.<\/p>\n

The problem with \u2018hanging\u2019 (apart from our estimable habit of hanging the present participle with the sense of a gerund) is not that the causative present sounds like the ordinary past (fell\u00a0being both the causative of fall and its past tense). It is a particular quirk of the English\u00a0language that the general verb derives from OE hangian and variants, referring to the \u2018base of\u00a0the neck\u2019, but that it became confused with the Norse causative h\u0119ngia which intruded into\u00a0northern English as henge.<\/p>\n

So \u2018you shall hang by the neck\u2026\u2019 or \u2018shall be hung, drawn and quartered\u2019 are correct\u00a0pronouncements; \u2018was hung at Tyburn\u2019 is not. The name Stonehenge rightly implies that the\u00a0monument comprises stones which were caused to hang; similarly, any unfortunate \u2018hanged at\u00a0Tyburn\u2019 suffered from the permanent causative rather than the more fleeting indicative.<\/p>\n

The Coverdale version of Ps 137:2 reads \u2018As for our harps, we hanged them up: upon the\u00a0trees that are therein\u2019. This makes the hanged look like the causative (which it is not in this\u00a0instance, the Hebrew qt.\u00a0l form meaning \u2018we hung\u2019 \u2013 suspendimus organa \u2013 the instruments in\u00a0question were kinn\u00f4r\u00f4t \u2013 lyres), but the inflected (-ed) and strong past tense with ablaut\u00a0(hung) meant much the same in the English of the period, and hanged is found persisting in\u00a0the equivalent place in the Authorised Version of King James.<\/p>\n

Whether or not this psalm-verse played a part in the longevity of the longer hanged as an alternative past tense to hung is questionable; but it would not have helped to lessen the\u00a0confusion between the indicative and causative usages of hanged. Moreover, the somewhat\u00a0inconsidered pronouncements of Jespersen and Crystal, mentioned at the beginning of this
\nnote, will not do.<\/p>\n

A postscript. A recent lecture to which I was subjected made me realise that some treatments\u00a0of linguistics bear the same relationship to philology as astrology has to astronomy. Several\u00a0manifest idiocies were trotted out by our linguisticist priestess, but not the one which should\u00a0be stamped upon firmly, the notion that \u2018it\u2019s me\u2019 is incorrect. In the Camb. Enc. of the Eng.\u00a0Lang. (page 203) Crystal asserts that as \u2018me\u2019 is the objective \u201cwhere Latin-influenced\u00a0grammatical tradition recommends the subjective\u201d and thus the schoolmasterly \u2018It is I\u2019 (also\u00a0commended in his Making Sense of English Usage, 1991, which prompts the suspicion that\u00a0there is a disastrous misprint in its title).<\/p>\n

Apart from Crystal\u2019s subjective use of the word \u2018objective\u2019, French has more to do with the idiom than Latin, for \u2018me\u2019 in this instance is not the accusative, but the emphatic, as in \u2018\u00e7\u2019est\u00a0moi\u2019. Oddly enough, in 1388 \u2018Je suy je\u2019 was the object of derision, in the words Chastillon contrefaisoit son langage (see Lebsanft, 2005, 365 apud G\u00e4rtner & G\u00fcnter, \u00dcberlieferungsund Aneignungsprozesse im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert... Trier).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by David Wulstan The causative is found in Hamito-Semitic languages and in Sanskrit; but it is not often\u00a0acknowledged as occurring in Indo-European languages generally. Crystal (Cambridge Enc.\u00a0of Language, 93) calls the causative a tense, a description which Semitic scholars would\u00a0certainly dispute. Jespersen (Essentials of Eng. Gramm., p.117), in discussing the difference\u00a0between the transitive and intransitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-useful-guides"],"gutentor_comment":0,"yoast_head":"\nCausative theme in English - King's English Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/kingsenglishsociety\/causative-theme-in-english\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Causative theme in English - King's English Society\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by David Wulstan The causative is found in Hamito-Semitic languages and in Sanskrit; but it is not often\u00a0acknowledged as occurring in Indo-European languages generally. 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