Universal #1587

Legacy number: 1587

 Number  1583
 Original  The following four causative oppositions: (1) laugh - make laugh, amuse; (2) boil - bring to boil; (3) burn - ignite (of a paper); (4) break, get broken - break in two (of a stick),
display varying predispositions to expression by one or another formal opposition. Thus,
A. The probability that a formal opposition with a causative morpheme will appear decreases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
B. The probability that a formal opposition with an anticausative morpheme will appear increases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
C. The probability that conversive formal opposition will appear increases from the second causative opposition to the fourth (it was not not found at all in the first).
D. Suppletive formal oppositions are encountered almost exclusively in the second and third causative oppositions, which indicates that there is a greater tendency for the first and fourth semantic oppositions to be expressed by one and the same root morpheme.
 Standardized  The following four causative oppositions: (1) laugh - make laugh, amuse; (2) boil - bring to boil; (3) burn - ignite (of a paper); (4) break, get broken - break in two (of a stick),
display varying predispositions to expression by one or another formal opposition. Thus,
A. The probability that a formal opposition with a causative morpheme will appear decreases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
B. The probability that a formal opposition with an anticausative morpheme will appear increases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
C. The probability that a conversive formal opposition will appear increases from the second causative opposition to the fourth (it was not not found at all in the first).
D. Suppletive formal oppositions are encountered almost exclusively in the second and third causative oppositions, which indicates that there is a greater tendency for the first and fourth semantic oppositions to be expressed by one and the same root morpheme.
 Keywords  causative
 Domain  morphology, semantics
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  over 100 languages
 Source  Nedjalkov 1969: 109-110, Nedjalkov & Sil'nickij 1969: 44-45, Nedjalkov & Sil'nickij 1973: 26-27

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Discussion
Notes
A CONVERSIVE formal opposition is a subtype of NON-DIRECTED oppositions. In this type of opposition it is not formally obvious which member is to be treated as the basic one and which as the derived. The members of a conversive opposition have the same stems.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
A CONVERSIVE formal opposition is a subtype of NON-DIRECTED oppositions. In this type of opposition it is not formally obvious which member is to be treated as the basic one and which as the derived. The members of a conversive opposition have the same stems.