Semantic Constraints Ⅰ : Causativization

Abstract

McCawley (1968) posited the underlying structure (2) for (l). (I) John killed Harry. The major semantic motivation for positing (2) as the underlying structure of (l) is that it makes it possible to explicitly capture the paraphrase relations among (3a, b, c) and ( l). (3) a. John caused Harry to die. b. John caused Harry to become dead. c. John caused Harry to become not alive. In other words, by applying the optional rule of Predicate-Raising successively to (2) and subsequent lexicalization processes, we can derive (l) and (3a, b, c) from (2).