[COCOA] Elena Soare (SFL) / Kyle Jerro (Essex)

Elena Soare (SFL), Supine causatives in Romanian (résumé en pdf ci-dessous)

Direct causation and pluractionality in Lubukusu causatives
Kyle Jerro (Essex)

Like many Bantu languages, Lubukusu (Kenya) has two morphological causatives: -y and –isy. In many languages multiple causatives mark degrees of directness (Comrie 1985), while in others, the meanings of these forms have merged with other functions (e.g., syncretism with the instrumental applicative in Kinyarwanda; Jerro 2017). In this talk, I describe the readings associated with the two morphological causatives and show that they differ in iterativity; the -y suffix marks a single, direct causing event, while the -isy form marks pluractional, direct causation. The talk looks at the semantics of directness and plurality of events in light of these forms, with the aim of situating the contrast in a broader typology of direct vs. indirect causation.