CAUSATIVES
[Proposition de Marie]
Causatives in French and Italian are known to exhibit complex properties, with two competing analyses, none of which accounts for all the data
- (a) one with "faire" taking a regular xcomp complement
- (b) one in which "faire" + infinitive verb form a complex predicate
The main motivation for (b) is the placement of complement clitics on the "faire" verb
(there are about 100 such cases in French UD, half of it with a reflexive clitic)
(1a) Paul fait parler Pierre de sa jeunesse
(1b) Paul le fait parler de sa jeunesse
(2a) Paul fait tourner un film à Jean / par Jean
(2b) Paul lui fait tourner un film
(2c) Paul en fait tourner un à Jean / par Jean
(2d) Paul lui en a fait tourner un
Paul fait rembourser le plaignant par l'assurance
Paul se fait rembourser par l'assurance
But some clitics go on the infinitive:
(3) Paul le fait en parler
Interaction with reflexive clitic is very complex...
(4) Paul fait s'évanouir Jean
(5) Paul fait se rencontrer les gens
For a given transitive verb like "X lave Y" the causative introduces a causer argument : C fait laver Y (à/par) X The reflexivization can semantically equate X with Y, or C with Y:
(6) Paul le fait se laver
(7) Paul se fait laver (par un infirmier)
(8) Paul s'est fait escroquer (9) Paul s'est fait voler son portable
There seem to be three possible representations:
(A) Current representation (in French UD and Italian UD):
- the infinitive is an xcomp of "faire" / "fare"
- The complements attach either to the infinitive or to the causative verb, depending on word order: the clitics appearing before the causative verb are attached to it: "Jean" attaches to "tourner" in (2a), but "lui" attached to "fait" in (2b)
(B) Non projective version:
- One option could be to attach only the subject of "faire" to it, and maybe the reflexive clitic if on "faire" (7, 8, 9) and all other complements to the infinitive leading to non projectivity in case of clitics on "faire" (2bcd, 3) (NB: the selectional restrictions of the complements are defined by the infinitive)
(C) Complex causative version (current representation in French Treebank / Sequoia)
the combination "faire"+ Vinf is viewed as a complex predicate "faire" can be treated as an auxiliary, all other dependents attached to the infinitive (including the causer argument)
Pros and cons:
(A)
pros: allows to distinguish reflexive (6) and (7)
cons: problem to treat differently arguments filling the same valency slot (2a vs 2bcd)
(B)
pros: same valency slots treated uniformly independently of pronominalization
cons: non projectivity (problem for parsing, but cases are marginal??)
(C)
pro: same valency slots treated uniformly independently of pronominalization