Causative Verbs in Formosan Languages. Preliminary Version. Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 5, No. 9.

This research is the result of 10 weeks of field work in Taiwan during the summer of 1972. It consists of a description, analysis, and comparison of the morphologically marked causative verbs in Rukai, Bunun, Tsou, Anis, Seedig, and Saisiyat. The theoretical framework employed is a type of case grammar referred to as "lexicase," a generative but nontransformational approach to syntax. The different approaches taken by several linguists to the problem of causation constructions are described, and then each of the six languages is considered independently. It is concluded that there is one typological characteristic common to all the languages studied, the clear and fundamental division of verbs into two classes, active and passive. (PP)