The grammar of causation has long been an intensely scrutinized area of language studies. For one thing, no grammatical description can be complete without a discussion of causative constructions, because every human language seems to possess a means of expressing the notion of causation, and this ubiquity, in turn, indicates the fundamental nature of this cognitive category. Such a basic category in human conceptualization is an ideal field of investigation for cross-linguistic comparison leading to the study of language universals and cross-linguistic variation. Grammarians have an intuitive understanding of what causation means, as causative expressions, encountered in one language after another, translate rather easily unlike such phenomena as "topic/focus" constructions in the manner of Philippine languages, the adversative passive in Japanese, and ethical datives in German or French. Despite these advantages and despite the intensive effort during the last three decades, a great deal about the grammar of causation remains a mystery. This volume aims to unravel some of the mysteries.

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