Flin 2012 018

Stages of grammaticalization of causative verbs
and constructions in Portuguese, Spanish,

French and Italian1
Augusto Soares da Silva

Catholic University of Portugal, Braga
The article shows that analytic causative constructions are more grammaticalized
in French and Italian than in Spanish and Portuguese, both in meaning (semantic
bleaching of the verb ‘to make’) and in synthesis (structural event integration).
It is pointed out, moreover, that Italian fare + infinitive is semantically and
structurally more grammaticalized than French faire + infinitive, and that the
emergence of the inflected infinitive in the clausal complements of causative
and perception verbs in Portuguese has made the Portuguese causative
constructions less integrated, and thus less grammaticalized, than the Spanish
ones. The conclusion of this study is that there exists a decreasing continuum of
grammaticalization of causative constructions in Romance languages, that starts
with Italian and goes on to French, Spanish and Portuguese, in that order.
Keywords: causative constructions, causative verbs, degrammaticalization,

grammaticalization, Romance languages, subjectification
1
This study was financed by national funding through the Portuguese Foundation for Sci-
ence and Technology, as part of the PEst-OE/FIL/UI0683/2011 research project. A short
version of this paper was presented at the Workshop on the Grammaticalization Pace of
Romance Languages held during the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica
Europaea in Lisbon, in September 2009. I am grateful to the convenors of the Workshop,
as well as to Claudio Iacobini for the revision of the Italian synchronic data. I would also
like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their thorough and illuminating comments.
Needless to say, the remaining errors are only mine.
Folia Linguistica 46/2 (2012), 513–552. doi 10.1515/flin.2012.018

issn 0165–4004, e-issn 1614–7308 © Mouton de Gruyter – Societas Linguistica Europaea
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514 Augusto Soares da Silva
1. Introduction
This paper aims to compare the stages of grammaticalization in meaning

(semantic bleaching) and structure (structural integration) of analytic, i.e.
periphrastic causative constructions in Portuguese, Spanish, French and
Italian. We will show that the continuum of grammaticalization expressed
in analytic causation does not only occur within one language but also
between different Romance languages, on a verb level as well as on a con-
struction level.2 The grammaticalization of causative verbs and construc-
tions opposes Portuguese and Spanish, on the one hand, and French and
Italian, on the other hand, while some differences also occur between the
individual languages of the two groups. The different degrees of grammatic-
alization between the four Romance languages under study are the result of
conceptual and structural differences the main factors of which are: the pat-
tern of force dynamics (Talmy 1988, 2000), the binding force of the causative
verb (Givón 1980), the degree of event integration and causal independence
(causee’s autonomy and causer’s control), the degree of subjectification3
(Traugott 1995, Langacker 1999) understood here as attenuation in subject
control (Langacker 1999) and a number of construal operations of main
and complement (causing and effected) events as explored by Cognitive
Linguistics (see Langacker 1991, 2008 and Talmy 2000). Taking the causa-
tive construction as a test case, we intend to test De Mulder & Lamiroy’s
(2008) hypothesis of a down cline of grammaticalization of Romance lan-
2
Construction is used in the sense of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, Croft 2001)
and Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991, 2008), i.e. a form–meaning pairing. In this
framework, lexicon and grammar are not distinct components, but form a continuum of
constructions in which the lexical and syntactic structures only differ in terms of internal
complexity. The distinction we are introducing between the level of the causative verb and
the level of the syntactic construction (pairing of the complex grammatical structure with
its meaning) is methodological. Terminologically, we distinguish between analytical (or
syntactic) causative constructions and non-analytical (or morphological and lexical) causa-
tive constructions.
3
The two major approaches to subjectification have been developed by Traugott (1989,
1995) and Langacker (1990, 1999). Both authors associate subjectification to grammatic-
alization. In Traugott’s approach, however, subjectification is a semantic process whereby
“meanings tend to become increasingly situated in the speaker’s subjective belief state
or attitude toward the proposition” (Traugott 1989: 31). Langacker instead focuses on the
involved conceptualization process and understands subjectivity and subjectification not
as referring to expressions, but primarily to the way an element of conceptualization is
subjectively perspectivized. Our take on subjectification is closer to Langacker’s approach.

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The grammaticalization of causative verbs 515
guages with French as the most grammaticalized language, followed by

Italian, then Spanish, and finally Portuguese and Romanian.
The empirical data for this study were gathered from three different
sources, viz. the extensive literature available on causative constructions in
Romance languages, our previous corpus-based studies on causative verbs
and constructions in Portuguese (mainly Soares da Silva 1999, 2003a, b,
2004b, 2005, 2007) and selective searches on Google about the use of some
constructions under analysis.
This paper is divided into seven sections. Following the introduction,
the second section provides theoretical and methodological elements for
the study of grammaticalization of analytic causative constructions. The
third section offers a description of the types of causation and of the cline
of semantic bleaching conveyed by causative verbs in Portuguese, Spanish,
French and Italian. The fourth section compares infinitival complement
causative constructions in the four Romance languages with respect to
their degree of causal (in)dependence and of event integration, and their
distributional properties in relation with causative verbs. These two sec-
tions present short (non-exhaustive) synchronic analyses. Sections 5 and
6 present additional evidence for the cline of grammaticalization of causa-
tive verbs and constructions in the four Romance languages compared,
viz. onomasiological evidence and, more importantly, diachronic evi-
dence. The conclusions and topics for further research are stated in the last
section.
2. Grammaticalization of analytic causative constructions
Analytic causative constructions involve two-verb structures in which the

first one expresses the notion of cause (or other closely related notions to a
causing event), without more specific lexical content, therefore being con-
ceptually dependent on the second one, which encodes the effected (caused)
event (Kemmer & Verhagen 1994: 117). As Langacker (1991: 408) points
out, analytic causative constructions profile the energy input or instigating
force, codified in the main subject or causer, responsible for the occurrence
of the complement event.
The different levels of causal force imposition exerted by the causer are
lexicalized by different causative verbs which entail different levels of the
causee’s independence and activity. According to Talmy’s (1988, 2000)

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force dynamics model, causative verbs lexicalize different force dynamic

patterns in the interaction between the causer and the causee. Syntactically,
there are different causative constructions encoding different semantic
structures. Romance languages have two main constructions, viz. the sub-
junctive finite complement construction with the complementizer que/che
and the infinitival complement construction, which itself falls into many
different subcategories.
It is well known that syntactic constructions and their verbs are intrin-
sically connected as shown by construction grammar models (Langacker
1987, 1991, 2008; Goldberg 1995; Croft 2001). However, causative construc-
tions respond to extremely fine conceptual and communicative demands:
regardless of the degree of causal strength expressed by the causative verb,
causative constructions may reflect different degrees of the causer/causee
independence (causer’s control and causee’s autonomy and resistance) and
of the causing/caused event integration. Romance causative constructions
fully illustrate this constructional elaboration.
In this paper the gradual grammaticalization of causative constructions
will be examined at two levels: that of the lexical meaning of causative
verbs, that is, the degree of semantic bleaching (note that causative verbs
are never used as prototypical auxiliaries), and that of the constructional
structure and meaning in terms of event structural integration. Of the dif-
ferent causative constructions, the most grammaticalized construction
will be the one in which the causative verb presents the highest degree of
semantic bleaching and/or the construction presents the highest degree of
structural integration. The distinction of various grammaticalization levels
of Romance causative constructions is in line with the assumption that the
grammaticalization process occurs within particular constructions (Bybee
2003; Traugott 2003, 2008). Romance causative constructions thus express
the correlation formulated by Givón (1980) between the semantics of the
complement-taking verb and the syntax of the verb-plus-complement con-
struction as a result of the binding force of the main verb.
A couple of preliminary observations have to be made with respect
to grammaticalization. Firstly, less formal and semantic variability is the
sign of a higher rate of grammaticalization. Secondly, evaluating a gram-
maticalization process involves a dimension of semasiological salience (or
prototypicality) and a dimension of onomasiological salience (or entrench-
ment), a lexical dimension and a constructional dimension, a diachronic
dimension and a synchronic dimension.

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3. Causative verbs, causal force dynamics, and semantic

bleaching
Romance analytic causative verbs will be analyzed according to three dif-

ferent parameters: (i) the type of semantic causation they express, includ-
ing the force dynamics pattern they lexicalize, (ii) the scale of causal
strength, and (iii) the process of semantic bleaching involved in the expres-
sion of causation. We will take semantically and syntactically prototypical
causative verbs, i.e. verbs meaning ‘to make’, ‘to let’ and (in Portuguese
and Spanish) ‘to order’ directly followed by an infinitival complement, on
the one hand and verbs that strictly express interpersonal causation con-
structed with a prepositional infinitive and with the meanings of ‘to force’,
‘to oblige’, ‘to push’, ‘to bring’, ‘to induce’ on the other.4
Let us start from the double distinction acknowledged in typological
studies between manipulative and directive causation on the one hand,
and direct and indirect causation on the other hand (Song 2001, Shibatani
& Pardeshi 2002). Both distinctions imply a continuum of manipulation/
direction and (in)directedness. Prototypical manipulative causation
involves physical coercion, is implicative and obviously direct. Directive
causation however is a typical causation of a verbal, mental and social
kind and is distinguished in various categories such as inducive, sociative
(Shibatani & Pardeshi 2002) and permissive causation.
Table 1 shows that cognate causative verbs express the same type of cau-
sation. There are, however, some differences between them as they have
greater or lower flexibility in filling in the continuum of both distinctions.
Apart from these semasiological differences that we will analyze later, the
main difference is onomasiological and involves the directive causation of
the ‘order’ type, which is analytically codified through the verb mandar ‘to
order’ in Portuguese and Spanish (and in other Iberian languages).5
4
Among causative verbs taking a prepositional infinitival complement, we also find pôr/
poner/mettre/mettere ‘to put’. However, the infinitival causative construction with pôr and
its cognates differs from the prepositional infinitival construction with the causative verbs
under study and hence, this issue will not be addressed in the present study.
5
The pair semasiology/onomasiology is generally regarded as identifying two different
semantic perspectives for studying the relationship between words and their meanings.
The semasiological perspective takes its starting-point in the word as a form, and charts
the meanings that the word can occur with. The onomasiological perspective takes its
starting-point in a concept, and investigates by which different expressions the concept
can be designated. It is important to emphasize that this distinction, which was originally

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Table 1. Causative verbs and semantic types of causation

Direct Indirect
Manipulative fazer/hacer/faire/fare ‘make’ fazer/hacer/faire/fare
forçar/forzar/forcer/forzare forçar/forzar/forcer/forzare
‘force’ obrigar/obligar/obliger/
obrigar/obligar/obliger/obbligare obbligare
‘oblige’
Directive (indu- mandar/mandar/∅/∅ ‘order’ mandar/mandar/∅/∅
cive, sociative, deixar/dejar/laisser/lasciare ‘let’ deixar/dejar/laisser/lasciare
permissive) levar/llevar/amener/portare levar/llevar/amener/portare
‘take’ conduzir/conducir/condurre
conduzir/conducir/conduire/
condurre ‘drive’
According to the semantic map of causation theorized by Talmy (1988,

2000) in terms of force dynamics, Table 2 shows that there are no funda-
mental differences between Romance languages regarding the codification
of four patterns of force dynamics in analytic causative verbs. These pat-
terns are (i) onset causing (starting the impingement), (ii) extended causing
(ongoing impingement), (iii) onset letting (cessation of actual impinge-
Table 2. Causative verbs and force dynamic patterns

Onset Extended
Impingement fazer/hacer/faire/fare
(causing) forçar/forzar/forcer/forzare
obrigar/obligar/obliger/obbligare
mandar/mandar/∅/∅
levar/llevar/amener/portare
conduzir/conducir/conduire/
condurre
Non-impinge deixar/dejar/laisser/lasciare deixar/dejar/laisser/lasciare
ment (letting)
lexicological, can also be applied to grammar. Therefore, the semasiological perspective

starts from the word or (grammatical) construction and looks at its meanings or functions,
whereas the onomasiological perspective starts from the concept or function and looks at
the different words or (grammatical) constructions.

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ment) and (iv) extended letting (potential impingement). ‘Extended causa-

tion’ is the only pattern that is not codified analytically (hence the gap in
Table 2) and that is expressed by the lexical causative verbs manter/man-
tener/mantenir/mantenere ‘to keep’.6 Nevertheless, extended causation can
be paraphrased by fazer/hacer/faire/fare combined with a static infinitive
equivalent to ‘to be’, ‘to stay’, or ‘to continue’.
Let us compare below the various Romance causative verbs with respect
to the scale of causal strength (binding or coercive force) they express.
Figure 1 distributes causative verbs through a decreasing cline of causal
strength (only the first lexical items of each set of cognates of Tables 1 and
2 are indicated).
forçar/. . .mandar fazer/ . . . levar/ . . . deixar/ . . .
+ −
Figure 1. Cline of causal strength
There are no major differences in the scale of force between Romance
languages regarding strictly interpersonal causation verbs taking prepos-
itional infinitival complements (forçar, obrigar, levar, conduzir and their
cognates). There are, however, differences regarding verbs meaning ‘to
make’ and ‘to let’ (fazer, deixar and their cognates). The French faire dif-
fers from its cognates because it has less semantic flexibility and therefore
a smaller scale of force. The Portuguese fazer and the Spanish hacer have a
broader range of uses and therefore refer to different degrees of manipula-
tive force, like ‘force’, ‘oblige’, ‘make’, ‘have’, while they also have an unin-
tended causative sense of ‘cause’. Example (1) may be interpreted both in an
agentive sense, more or less coercive, and in the sense of unintended causa-
tion (in which case it is acceptable to introduce the sentence with sem/sin
querer ‘accidentally’). In the agentive or factitive meaning, fazer/hacer can
also be used with the meaning of ‘to order’ and therefore compete with the
verb mandar that we analyze later. Example (1) also allows us to consider
fazer/hacer as an order (that is, Maria ordered him to go back home).
(1) a. A Maria fê-lo voltar a casa.
Mary made-him.acc go home
b. Maria lo hizo volver a casa.
Mary him.acc made go home
‘Mary made/had him go home.’
6
For a force-dynamic approach to the conceptual opposition between ‘to keep’ and ‘to
leave/let’, see Soares da Silva (2004d).

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The Italian fare has an even greater range of uses, as exemplified in (2),
including agentive or factitive causation (2a), non agentive causation (2b),
permissive causation (2c) and even final causation (2d):
(2) a. La mamma mi ha fatto mangiare la trippa, che schifo!
Mom me made eat.inf guts, how disgusting!
‘Mom made me eat guts, how disgusting!’
b. La mamma, con la sua pazienza, mi ha fatto mangiare tutta la
Mum with her patience me had eat.inf all the
pappa.
food
‘Mom was so patient that she had me eat all the food.’
c. La mamma mi ha fatto mangiare i cioccolatini.
Mom me let eat.inf the little chocolates
‘Mom let me eat all the little chocolates.’
d. La mamma ha messo il cioccolato per farmi bere il latte.
Mom put the chocolate to make.inf.me drink the milk
‘Mom put chocolate so that I would drink the milk.’
As proof of the greater semantic generality of fare compared to its
Romance cognates, fare + Inf can compete with lasciare + Inf, like in (2c).
In the daily oral register, expressions like Fammi parlare! (literally, ‘Make
me talk!’) instead of Lasciami parlare! (‘Let me talk!’), non mi faccio impres-
sionare (literally, ‘I don’t make myself impressed’) instead of non mi lascio
impressionare (‘I don’t let myself be impressed’) and farsi ingannare/fregare
(literally, ‘make oneself fooled’) instead of lasciarsi ingannare/fregare (‘to
let oneself be fooled’) are quite common (see Cerbasi 1997: 160).7
Cerbasi (1997: 160–162) gives two other manifestations of the semantic
generality of fare + Inf. One of them is the construction with a perception
verb in the infinitive. Thus, far vedere (‘to make see’) is mainly used in the
informal register, instead of mostrare (‘to show’), while the Portuguese fazer
ver and the Spanish hacer ver express a stronger and coercive causation
and, furthermore, the verb ver ‘to see’ is generally used metaphorically as a
mental verb. The Portuguese fazer ver and Spanish hacer ver mean instead
‘to demonstrate’, ‘to make understand’, ‘to make consider’. The Italian far
7
A Google search gives the following results: Fammi parlare! (9,500 quotes) and Lasciami
parlare! (6,100), non mi faccio impressionare (10,300) and non mi lascio impressionare
(7,440), farsi ingannare (46,500)/farsi fregare (70,200) and lasciarsi ingannare (43,900)/
lasciarsi fregare (1,930).

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sentire has a permissive and inducive meaning like ‘to let hear’ rather than
a coercive meaning like ‘to force to hear’. The second manifestation of the
semantic generality of the Italian verb fare can be found in cases such as
example (3) in which fare + Inf expresses quite a weak causation and has to
be translated with an expression meaning ‘to give’.
(3) La zia ci fece mangiare una torta molto buona.
the aunt us made eat.inf a pie very good
‘Our aunt gave us a really good pie to eat.’ (Cerbasi 1997: 162)
As for the causative ‘to let’, there are apparently no major differences
between Romance verbs, as shown in (4). They all express the three main
meanings of ‘not to prevent’ (4a), ‘to allow’ (4b), and ‘to let go’ (4c, d):
(4) a. O João pôs-se a fazer disparates e eu deixei-o fazer.
Juan se puso a hacer tonterías, y se las dejé hacer.
Jean s’est mis à faire des bêtises et je l’ai laissé faire.
Joao ha cominciato a fare lo sciocco e gliel’ho lasciato fare.
‘John started playing games (fooling around, acting silly) and I let
him do it.’
b. A Maria pediu-me para ir ao cinema, e eu deixei-a ir.
María me pidió ir al cine, y la dejé ir.
Marie m’a demandé d’aller au cinéma, et je l’ai laissé aller.
Maria mi ha chiesto se poteva andare al cinema e l’ho lasciata andare.
‘Mary asked me if she could go to the cinema, and I let her go.’
c. Ele deixou o pássaro voar.
Él dejó volar al pájaro.
Il a laissé l’oiseau s’envoler.
Ha lasciato/fatto scappare l’uccello.
‘He let the bird fly out.’
d. Não deixes a corda/as rédeas do cavalo!
Ne lâche pas la corde / les brides du cheval!
Non lasciare la corda / le briglie del cavallo!
‘Do not let go of the rope/the horse’s reins!’
Nevertheless, the French verb laisser has a narrower semasiological

range than its Romance counterparts (Soares da Silva 2003b). Putting aside
other differences in non causative uses, the French laisser has lost most of
the diachronic prototype of Romance verbs and one of the primitive mean-
ings of the Latin etymon laxare, viz. the meaning of ‘to let go’. French uses
instead the verb lâcher, like in (4d). Laisser also lost the spatial meaning

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(‘to go away’) of the Latin and proto-Romance structure, now expressed by

quitter/abandonner. The same happened to the Romanian cognate a lăsa:
‘to let go’, which is now expressed by the idiomatic expression a da drumul
(literally ‘to give way to’), while ‘to go away’ is designated by the verb a
părăsi. In other words, the Portuguese deixar, the Spanish dejar and the
Italian lasciare have kept the force dynamic pattern of cessation of actual
impingement (onset letting) semasiologically, while the French laisser and
the Romanian a lăsa have modified this pattern onomasiologically and
transferred it to other expressions like lâcher and a da drumul. Note that
the transfer was not completed in French as there are still expressions in
use such as (4c) or laisser tomber ‘let fall’.
Portuguese, Spanish and Galician also have a causative mandar + Inf
with the meaning of ‘to order’ (which differs from the meaning of caused
motion expressed by mandar, i.e., ‘to send’). The ‘order’ causative man-
dar expresses a force-dynamic configuration similar to that of fazer/hacer.
Therefore, mandar and fazer/hacer are interchangeable in the expression
of directive causation, as seen in (1). However, mandar semantically dif-
fers from fazer/hacer in that it is a non-implicative verb, that is, the causee
may not perform the action ordered by the causer, as illustrated in (5a) as
opposed to (5b). In addition, as a directive verb of order, mandar involves
an interaction that is necessarily interpersonal, and thus, imposes restric-
tions of intentionality both on the causer and on the causee. Comparatively,
the French faire and the Italian fare have no direct competitor for the
Portuguese and Spanish mandar, since a verb like the French ordonner
or Italian ordinare ‘to order’ requires a construction with a prepositional
infinitive (de/di + Inf).
(5) a. Mandei-o ir embora, mas ele não foi.
ordered.1sg-him.acc go.inf away, but he not go
‘I ordered him to go away, but he didn’t go.’
b. Fi-lo ir embora, ?/*mas ele não foi.
made.1sg-him.acc go.inf away, but he not go
Finally, we will compare the semantic bleaching of causative verbs and

therefore their stage of grammaticalization. Causation verbs that are strictly
interpersonal like forcer ‘to force’ and mandar ‘to order’ keep their literal
meaning and their argument selection restrictions. Therefore, these verbs
aren’t grammaticalized, at least at the level of their meanings. Interpersonal
causatives derived from movement verbs like levar/llevar/amener/portare

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‘to take’ are exceptions. On the contrary, fazer/hacer/faire/fare ‘to make’

and deixar/dejar/laisser/lasciare ‘to let’ lose or attenuate some features of
their literal meaning when used as causative verbs. This semantic bleach-
ing results from a subjectification or attenuation process of the degree of
control exerted by the agentive subject (Langacker 1999). The semantic
development of the Portuguese verb deixar ‘to leave, to let’ and its Romance
cognates, extensively described in Soares da Silva (1999, 2003a, b, 2007), is
enlightening. The shift from ‘to let go’ (cessation of impingement) to ‘not
to impede’ (non-occurrence of impingement) implies a weakening of the
causer’s power and a power transfer from the causer to the causee; the
shift from ‘to let go’ to ‘to allow’ implies a shift in attenuation and a transi-
tion from concrete and physical interaction to abstract and social interac-
tion. The process of semantic bleaching and attenuation is not as obvious
in fazer/hacer/faire/fare ‘to make’. This is due to the extreme vagueness of
this verb, since its schematic meaning of ‘action’ is specified by its comple-
ment, and to the fact that it has kept agentive meanings of the Latin ety-
mon facere, for instance, ‘to create’ (Fr. faire un gâteau ‘to make a cake’),
‘to carry out a given activity’ (Fr. faire le ménage ‘to do the housework’) as
well the non-agentive meaning of ‘to cause’ (García Perez 2007). In any
case, there is semantic bleaching in the original meaning of ‘to carry out
an activity’, from which the causative meaning ‘to make’ originated. This
semantic bleaching involves a weakening of the agent/causer’s activity or
potency because the locus of activity or potency directed toward realiza-
tion of the envisaged event is no longer concentrated in the agent/causer,
but is shared with a new participant, that is, the causee.
But why are faire and its cognates prototypical causatives and why are
they more grammaticalized in the expression of causation than other ana-
lytic causatives? This is explained by our own cultural cognitive model of
causation (Soares da Silva 2004a): in Western cultures we have a causation
metaphor in which causing is making and the effects are objects
made (Lakoff & Johnson 1999: 208).
Now, the comparison of causative verbs in Romance languages reveals
a major difference in the stage of grammaticalization as regards ‘mak-
ing’ causatives: the French faire and the Italian fare show a greater level
of semantic bleaching and attenuation in subject control compared to the
Spanish hacer and the Portuguese fazer. There is still a difference in degree
between faire and fare: the Italian fare was more subject to semantic bleach-
ing and attenuation than the French faire, given the very wide range of uses

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of the causative fare and the apparent lack of semantic constraints. As seen
previously, the Italian fare can express permissive causation and compete
with lasciare ‘to let’ and can also express other forms of weak causation,
which does not happen with the French faire. As for ‘letting’ causatives, it
may be said that the French laisser is a little more grammaticalized than its
counterparts deixar/dejar/lasciare because it has a more narrow domain of
application. Anyway, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed with further
evidence. Figure 2 represents the increasing continuum of semantic bleach-
ing, subjectification and grammaticalization in Romance causative verbs.
forçar/. . .mandar deixar/. . . fazer/hacer faire fare
− +
Figure 2. Continuum of semantic bleaching and subjectification/grammat-
icalization in Romance causative verbs
4. Causative constructions, causal (in)dependence and

structural integration
After studying analytic causative verbs, we will now examine (infinitival)

causative syntactic constructions. Besides the finite complement causative
construction, Romance languages (except Romanian) possess different
types of infinitival complement causative constructions. A first infinitival
construction is the one in which the object (O) causee occurs after two
verbs and which we term the VVO construction or simply VV construc-
tion, like in (6). In the second infinitival construction the object causee
occurs between the causative verb and the infinitival verb, we will call it the
VOV construction, like in (7). Examples (6) and (7) in Portuguese are also
valid for the other Romance languages that are being analyzed. Portuguese
possesses a third infinitival construction in which the object causee is
interposed between the two verbs and is interpreted as the subject of the
infinitival verb and this verb occurs in the inflected infinitive – the VSV
construction, like in (8) which is more frequent in Brazilian Portuguese
than European Portuguese.8 Even though Galician also possesses the
8
In our corpus analysis about causative and perception constructions in contemporary Por-
tuguese (Soares da Silva 2005), we could verify that the VSV construction is more frequent
in Brazilian Portuguese than European Portuguese with all causative and perception verbs:
17% in the corpus of Brazilian Portuguese against 3.3% only in the corpus of European Portu-
guese. The analyzed corpus is composed of texts from a Portuguese newspaper (Público) and

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inflected infinitive construction, the inflected infinitive does not occur in

Galician causative constructions (Sousa Fernández 1999: 176). Besides the
variation in word order, another variation appears to be associated with
the causee, namely the variation in case marking. It can be codified as (i)
an accusative or direct object, like in (6a, 7a, b), (ii) as a dative or indirect
object, like in (6b), (iii) less frequently as an agentive/instrumental, like in
(6c), and (iv) as a nominative or subject in Portuguese, necessarily with the
inflected infinitive, like in (8a, b).
These variations in word order and in case marking of the causee are
correlated with the infinitive intransitive/transitive pattern, even though
there are a few exceptions. The correlation pattern is illustrated in Table 3. In
regular cases, intransitive constructions encode the causee as direct object
(DO) and transitive constructions encode the causee as direct object (DO)
in the VOV construction and as indirect object (IO) or another oblique
(agentive/instrumental) in the VV construction. Note that strictly interper-
sonal causation verbs like forçar/forcer ‘to force’ (but not mandar ‘to order’)
only occur in one single type of construction akin to VOV, viz. the VOà/aV
construction in which the infinitive is preceded by the preposition à/a.
(6) a. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou correr os miúdos (-os correr)
Mary made/ordered/let run.inf the children (-them run.inf)
‘Mary made/let the children run / ordered the children to run.’
b. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou ler esse livro aos miúdos
Mary made/ordered/let read.inf that book to.the children
(-lhes ler esse livro).
(-them read.inf that book)
‘Mary made/ordered/let the children (to) read that book.’
c. O presidente fez/mandou/(não)? deixou aprovar a lei
the president made/ordered/(not) let approve.inf the law
pelos deputados
by.the deputies
‘The president made/(did not) let the deputies approve the law’
‘The president ordered the deputies to approve the law’
Brazilian newspaper (Folha de São Paulo) and has an extension of approximately 5 million
words in each sub-corpus (the respective database contains nearly 5,000 tokens of causation
and perception constructions). Another divergence has to do with the VV monoclausal
construction: it is more productive in European Portuguese than in Brazilian Portuguese.
On the frequency of VOV and VV constructions in the same corpus, see note 11.

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Table 3. Distributional range of causative constructions

Word order VSV (Portuguese) VOV VV
intr. tr. intr. tr. intr. tr.
Case-marking INF INF INF INF INF INF
Nominative – subj 8a 8b
Accusative – do 7a 7b 6a
Dative – io 6b
Agentive 6c
(7) a. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou os miúdos (-os) correr

Mary made/ordered/let the children (-them) run.inf
b. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou os miúdos (-os) ler esse livro
Mary made/ordered/let the children (-them) read.inf that book
(8) a. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou os miúdos (eles/*-os)
Mary made/ordered/let the children (they/*-them)
correrem
run-infl inf-3pl
b. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou os miúdos (eles) lerem
Mary made/ordered/let the children (they) read-infl.inf-3pl
esse livro.
that book
VSV, VOV and VV represent three stages in the increasing continuum
of causal dependence (causer’s control and causee’s dependence) and event
structural integration. The finite complement construction is obviously
at an even lower position of this continuum. VSV and VOV are biclausal
structures (with VSV being more biclausal than VOV), while VV is a
monoclausal structure. Table 4 systematizes the main structural features
that iconically codify this conceptual continuum.9
In the VSV construction, the subordinate verb has many of the mark-
ings of an independent verb: it preserves markings of person and number
and its whole argument structure, i.e. none of the arguments of the infini-
tive may raise as an argument of the main verb. Furthermore, the subject
of the infinitive is marked in the nominative, just as the subject of an inde-
9
For a more detailed analysis in a Relational Grammar approach of the distributional and
structural properties of the three constructions, see the pioneering study on Portuguese
causative and perception verbs by Raposo (1981).

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Table 4. Structural features of the three infinitival causative constructions

– More independence of – Less independence of the
the complement event complement event
– Less event integration – More event integration
– Non-raised Subj Inf – Raised Subj Inf: clitic – Raised Subj Inf: clitic
climbing climbing
– Inflected Inf – Uninflected Inf – Uninflected Inf
– Non-raised Obj Inf – Non-raised Obj Inf – Raised Obj Inf: clitic
climbing
– Possible embedded – Possible embedded – Impossible embedded
negation negation negation
– Biclausal structure – Biclausal structure – Monoclausal structure
VSV VOV VV
pendent clause would be (SV). Thus the complement event is construed

with greater independence. At the other end of the continuum we find the
VV construction: the subordinate verb has no marking of an independent
verb and shows all the signs of raising onto the main verb, in particular
the raising of all the clitics and the impossibility of predicative negation, so
that it is fully integrated into the main verb to form a complex verb (VV),
its arguments becoming the arguments of the complex verb. In Raposo’s
(1981) terms, VV is a ‘clause-union’ construction. The VOV construction
represents an intermediate point on the continuum: the subordinate verb
preserves its complement argument structure and therefore the comple-
ment event is still viewed as independent, but its subject is marked in the
accusative, as the direct object of the main verb (VO).
The three infinitival constructions involve different perspectival con-
struals of the complement scene, or, in Langacker’s terms (1987, 1991) dif-
ferent trajector/landmark organizations (see Achard 1998 and Soares da
Silva 1999: ch. 5, 2004b, 2005). To summarize, VSV takes the whole of the
complement event as the target of the causer’s instigating force, i.e. as the
landmark or object of the main verb. Therefore, the VSV construction
profiles an indirect relationship between two events and a force interac-
tion between two energy sources or two trajectors. This conceptual import
makes of VSV the one closest to a bi-clausal construction. The VOV con-
struction to the contrary takes the main participant of the subordinate

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event, that is, the causee, as the specific target of the instigating force, i.e.
as the landmark or object of the main verb, but at the same time it recog-
nizes the causee as a valid energy source to generate (or at least sustain)
the infinitival process. Therefore, the VOV construction also profiles an
indirect relationship between the two events, though with a more direct
interaction between the energy sources or trajectors: the causer interacts
directly with the raised causee object, which is taken as a reference point
to access the caused event. Hence, the VOV construction is less bi-clausal
than the VSV construction. Finally, VV construes the main participant of
the complement event as the internal argument (object or experiencer)
of a single complex verb and profiles a single causal activity with a sin-
gle energy source, that is a single trajector exerting control over the event
as a whole, which makes of VV a mono-clausal construction (for a more
detailed analysis see Soares da Silva 2004b, c, 2005).
Thus the VV construction profiles the most synthetic and direct way of
causation involving a two-event structure whereas the Portuguese VSV con-
struction encodes the most analytic and indirect way of causation between
a non-specific causing event (typical of all analytic causative constructions)
and a temporally-bounded caused event (typical of infinitival complement
constructions). The upper level of indirectness, causal independence and
conceptual distance occurs when the caused event is encoded in a finite
complement clause with the complementizer que. Finally, VOV profiles the
most direct and interactive way of causation between two energy sources.
The change that occurs from the VSV to the VV construction could be
described in Langacker’s (1999) terms as a progressive process of subjecti-
fication or attenuation in subject control: the logical subject of the infini-
tive gradually loses control over its own activity. This leads to a greater
degree of structural integration of events and to a more direct causal rela-
tionship. The constructional integration and the direct causation are icon-
ically codified in the syntactic features of the VV constructions reported
in Table 4. In terms of grammaticalization, there is a significant increase
from the VSV to the VV construction: VV represents the highest degree of
constructional grammaticalization while VSV the lowest. To put it short,
the increasing cline of constructional integration and grammaticalization
is as follows: VSV > VOV > VV.
Let us now compare infinitival complement constructions in the four
Romance languages and their level of structural integration in particular, as
well as their distribution with causative verbs. The main difference occurs

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with the causative verb meaning ‘to make’.Whereas the French faire and the
Italian fare necessarily combine with the VV monoclausal construction,
the Portuguese fazer and the Spanish hacer are compatible with both the
VV monoclausal construction and the VOV bi-clausal construction. Only
the Portuguese fazer also combines with the VSV bi-clausal construction.
All the syntactic features of the VV construction previously mentioned in
Table 4 are of compulsory use with the French and Italian construction
faire/fare + Inf. Besides that, French faire + Inf and (generally) Italian fare
+ Inf cannot alternate with the finite complement construction, contrarily
to what happens with the Portuguese and Spanish fazer/hacer + Inf, which
proves that there is a higher degree of fusion in the French and Italian con-
structions faire/fare + Inf. Nevertheless, we find various degrees of fusion
between the causative verb and the infinitive in French and Italian faire/
fare + Inf. For example, the possibility of putting an adverb between the
verb faire/fare and the infinitive and the case marking of the causee as an
agentive/instrumental by using the French preposition par and Italian da
are indicative of a less complete degree of fusion (see Roegiest 1983).
When comparing the Italian construction and the French construction,
the Italian fare + Inf seems to show a higher level of structural integration
than the French faire + Inf. Proof of that is found in three syntactic features
of the French construction:
i. the possibility to interpolate the reflexive pronoun se keeping it close to
the infinitive, as in (9);
ii. the interposition of one or more clitic pronouns with the positive
imperative, as in (10), whereas the verbal complex in Italian can be kept
fused, as in (11) (Comrie 1976: 297–300);
iii. the impossibility to cliticize the embedded object to the main verb
(Kayne 1975: 287), as in (12b), contrary to what happens in Italian, as
in (12c).10
Burzio (1978: 25) presents the following sentence as grammatical:

10
(i) Gli lascerò parlare Giovanni.

him.dat let.fut1sg talk.inf Giovanni
‘I will let Giovanni. talk to him.’
However, this sentence is not accepted by all Italian speakers. Besides that, I did not find any
example of such a sentence or similar on Google. The sentence could however be acceptable
with the agentive introduced by the preposition da. Sentence (12c) is also acceptable in the
informal register. I am grateful to Claudio Iacobini for these comments.

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(9) Le bruit les fait se lever.

the noise them makes themselves get.up.inf
‘The noise wakes them up.’
(10) Fais- les- lui planter.
make-them-him.dat plant.inf
‘Make him plant them.’
(11) Glie- le voglio far baciare.
him.dat-them want make.inf kiss.inf
‘I want to make him kiss them.’
(12) a. Je ferai parler Jean a Pierre.
I have-fut.1sg talk-inf J to P
‘I will have Jean speak to Pierre.’
b. *Je lui ferai parler Jean.
I him.dat have-fut.1sg talk.inf J
‘I will have Jean speak to him.’
c. Ci farò parlare Giovanni.
someone.dat let.fut.1sg talk.inf G
‘I will let Giovanni speak to someone.’
To be precise, it is not only fare + Inf that seems to be more integrated

structurally than faire + Inf, but the Italian VV monoclausal causative con-
struction itself seems to present a higher degree of structural integration
than the French VV monoclausal causative construction. Indeed, these
three syntactic features allow to establish the same difference in structural
integration between lasciare + Inf and laisser + Inf (both in VV mono-
clausal construction).
There is also a difference in the level of integration between the
Portuguese and Spanish constructions. The Spanish hacer + Inf has a
greater degree of structural integration than the Portuguese fazer + Inf.
Beyond the existence of the inflected infinitive VSV construction in
Portuguese that makes Portuguese causative constructions comparatively
less integrated than those of the other Romance languages, evidence for
this is provided by the following:
i. In Spanish, the dative causee can be used both as post-posed to hacer
+ Inf or interposed between the causative verb and the infinitival verb,
like in (13a), even though post-position is more frequent (17), whereas
Portuguese only allows post-position (13b).
ii. In Spanish, the dative causee can appear with an intransitive infini-

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tive, whereas such a construction is more difficult in Portuguese, like

in (14). Note that, at this point, Portuguese follows the regular pattern
observed in French and Italian.
iii. In Portuguese, the most common construction is VOV when the causee
is [+ HUM] and when the infinitive is transitive (see Soares da Silva
2005),11 whereas in Spanish the most common construction is clearly VV.
(13) a. Juan hizo a su mujer traer un regalo. (Cano Aguilar 1981: 243)
John made to his wife bring.inf a present
b. *O João fez à sua mulher trazer um presente
the John made to his wife bring.inf a present
‘John made his wife bring a gift.’
(14) a. Le hice correr.
him.dat made run.inf
b. ??Fiz- lhe correr.
??made-him.dat run.inf
‘I made him run.’
Note that Spanish hacer + Inf also allows the VOV biclausal construc-
tion, like in (15), even though some authors (e.g. Roegiest 1983) wrongly
claimed that the VV structure was compulsory with hacer + Inf. Treviño
(1992) was one of the first authors to acknowledge the use of hacer in the
VOV construction. Moreno Cabrera (1991: 485) draws the attention to the
fact that the insertion of the causee between the causative verb and the
infinitival verb (i.e. the VOV construction) can be used as a means to dis-
ambiguate constructions like (16a), which becomes unambiguous in (16b)
11
Our corpus analysis of causative and perception constructions in contemporary Portu-
guese (Soares da Silva 2005) shows that with the transitive infinitive, the preferred option
with causative and perception verbs is clearly the VOV construction both in European and
Brazilian Portuguese: 71.7% of VOV against 21.3% of VV in the corpus of European Por-
tuguese, and 65% of VOV against 9.3% of VV in the corpus of Brazilian Portuguese. The
VV monoclausal construction tends to prefer intransitive infinitives, and this trend is more
obvious in European Portuguese (86.2% of VV construction against 8.9% of VOV con-
struction) than in Brazilian Portuguese (48.9% of VV construction against 41.6% of VOV
construction). This difference has to do with a reduced productivity of the VV construc-
tion in the Brazilian variety (31.4%) compared to the European variety (70.8%). About the
frequency of the VSV construction in the same corpus, see footnote 8. The results for fazer +
Inf are as follows: (1) with transitive infinitive, 54.6% of VOV, 42.3% of VV and 3.1% of VSV
in European Portuguese and 66.7% of VOV, 8.5% of VV and 24.8% of VSV in Brazilian Por-
tuguese; (2) with intransitive infinitive, 5.2% of VOV, 94.8% of VV and 0% of VSV in Euro-
pean Portuguese and 38.3% of VOV, 55.4% of VV and 5.3% of VSV in Brazilian Portuguese.

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and (16c), or (17), which becomes unambiguous in (13a). Note that Italian
and French allow to avoid ambiguity in sentences like (16a) and (17) thanks
to constructions where an agentive/instrumental causee is introduced
by the preposition da in Italian and par in French. In the same situation,
Portuguese naturally uses the VOV construction (or the VSV construc-
tion) or the finite complement construction.
(15) a. Juan hizo a Pedro abrir la puerta.
John made to Peter open.inf the door
‘John had Peter open the door.’ (Treviño 1992: 310)
b. Hicimos al médico examinar a María.
made.1pl to.the doctor examine.inf Mary
‘We had the doctor examine Mary.’ (Zubizarreta 1985: 27)
(16) a. Juan hizo besar a Carlos a María. (Moreno Cabrera 1991: 485)
b. Juan hizo a Carlos besar a María.
John made to Charles kiss.inf to Mary
‘John had Charles kiss Mary.’
c. Juan hizo a María besar a Carlos.
John made to Mary kiss.inf to Charles
‘John had Mary kiss Charles.’
(17) Juan hizo traer un regalo a su mujer.

John made bring.inf a gift to his wife
John had his wife bring a present.’/‘John made someone bring a present
for his wife.’
Figure 3 represents the increasing cline of event structural integration

and therefore of constructional grammaticalization in Romance infiniti-
val complement constructions with the causative verb ‘to make’. The most
grammaticalized construction is the Italian fare + Inf, followed by the
French faire + Inf. Then comes, in a more distant position, the Spanish
hacer + Inf and finally the Portuguese fazer + Inf, as the least grammat-
icalized construction. The three syntactic features discussed earlier in
examples (9)–(12) support our conclusion.
fazer + Inf hacer + Inf faire + Inf fare + Inf
− +
Figure 3. Cline of grammaticalization in Romance causative constructions
(‘to make’ + Inf)

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Another evidence of this continuum is the causative-reflexive construc-

tion. The French se faire + Inf appears to be far more grammaticalized than
the Portuguese fazer-se + Inf. Thus Araújo (2008: 414–452) shows that the
Portuguese construction only possesses part of the French construction’s
polysemy, viz. the most agentive meanings, as the non-agentive and pas-
sive meanings of se faire + Inf are rare or inexistent, like in (18). Moreover,
Araújo (2008: 499–584) shows on the basis of a corpus of French texts and
their Portuguese translations that se faire + Inf has many equivalents in
Portuguese beyond the causative-reflexive construction, viz. the infinitival
and finite construction fazer + Inf and fazer com que + Subj, the causative
construction with mandar, like in (19), the canonic passive and the passive
with se, the causative-reflexive construction deixar-se + Inf, an active ver-
bal structure, like in (20), among other equivalents.
(18) a. Le quartier a mauvaise réputation.
Une prostituée s’ est fait assassiner
a prostitute oneself made murder.inf
il y a trois semaines sur les marches de l’église voisine.
‘The neighbourhood has a bad reputation. A prostitute was mur-
dered three weeks ago on the stairs of the nearby church.’ (Araújo
2008: 439)
b. Os habitantes da capital somali sonham, enfim, poderem sair à rua
sem serem assassinados/ ??se fazerem assassinar12
without be.inf.3pl murdered/ oneself make.inf.3pl murdered
‘The inhabitants of the Somali capital can finally dream of going out
on the streets without being murdered.’ (Araújo 2008: 439)
(19) a. Il ressortit vers onze heures, erra quelque temps, prit un fiacre
et se fit arrêter Place de la Concorde
and himself made stop.inf Place de la Concorde
‘He left at eleven. Wandered around for some time, took a fiacre and
was made to stop in Place de La Concorde.’ (Araújo 2008: 519)
12
The construction of this sentence with fazer-se (make oneself) occurs in the corpus of
journalistic texts, but is probably a Gallicism. Araújo (2008: 439) says that none of his
Portuguese informants accepted this sentence (18b) and therefore had it changes to the
canonical passive construction (be + past participle).

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Saiu cerca das onze horas. Andou ao acaso durante algum tempo,
b.
tomou um fiacre
e mandou-o parar na Praça da Concórdia
and ordered- it stop.inf in.the Praça da Concórdia
‘He left at eleven. Wandered around for some time, took a fiacre and
made it stop in Place de La Concorde.’ (ibid.)
(20) a. Frédéric se fit ramener vers les boulevards

F. oneself made take.inf towards the.pl boulevards
‘Frédéric had himself taken back to the boulevards.’ (Araújo 2008: 512)
b. Frederico pediu que o conduzisse novamente às alamedas.
F. asked that him driven again to.the.pl avenues
‘Frederico asked to be driven back to the avenues.’ (ibid.)
In relation to causative constructions with ‘to let’, we observe less

important differences between the compared Romance languages, as far as
the opposition between VV and VOV constructions is concerned. In any
case, the Portuguese construction deixar + Inf seems to have a lower level
of grammaticalization than its Romance counterparts: besides the fact
that Portuguese deixar possesses the less integrated VSV construction, the
dominant construction is clearly VOV with transitive infinitives, both in a
synchronic and diachronic corpus (Soares da Silva 1999, 2005). The same is
true for the Portuguese mandar + Inf in relation to its Spanish counterpart.
In fact, the existence of the inflected infinitive VSV construction in
Portuguese is enough for Portuguese causative constructions to have a
lower degree of grammaticalization than the causative constructions in the
other Romance language under comparison.
Figure 4 represents the increasing cline of constructional grammatical-
ization in Romance infinitival complement causative constructions, from
the Portuguese inflected infinitive VSV biclausal construction to the Italian
VV monoclausal construction. There may be differences in the degree of
grammaticalization between the Romance VOV biclausal causative con-
structions that were not analyzed here.
PtVSV Pt/Sp/Fr/ItVOV PtVV SpVV FrVV ItVV

− +
Figure 4. Cline of constructional grammaticalization in Romance causative
constructions

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In the next two sections, we will analyze two different types of add-
itional evidence for the grammaticalization cline in Romance causative
constructions, viz. onomasiological evidence and diachronic evidence.
5. Onomasiological evidence
The French and Italian faire/fare + Inf are onomasiologically more sali-
ent than the semantically equivalent lexical causatives. For example, faire
savoir/far sapere ‘to let know’ or faire voir/far vedere ‘to make see’ can be
in some contexts (particularly in informal Italian) as frequent as, or even
more frequent than, dire/dire ‘to say’ or montrer/mostrare ‘to show’.13 There
are even cases in which analytic constructions have no equivalent, as in the
Italian mi hai fatto arrabbiare ‘you made me angry’ or mi hai fatto innamo-
rare ‘you made me fall in love’ compared to the rarely used constructions
mi hai arrabbiato ‘you annoyed me’ or mi hai innamorato ‘you fell me in
love’.14 Interlinguistically, there are various situations in which French and
Italian use the analytic causative with faire/fare, when Portuguese and
Spanish prefer the lexical causative or another equivalent construction. See
the examples at (21).
(21) a. Fr faire valoir notre point de vue = Pt apresentar o nosso ponto de vista
make prevail our point of view = present our point of view
b. Fr faire baisser le chômage = Pt reduzir o desemprego
make decrease the unemployment = reduce the unemployment
13
The onomasiological sallience of faire savoir/far sapere may not be verified in the fre-
quency of use, given that the verbs dire/dire are rather frequent in French and Italian (as
their equivalents in the other Romance languages). In some contexts, the lexical causative
verb is more frequent than the analytic causative construction: for example, a Google
search confirms that the Italian mostrare le foto ‘show the pictures’ (240.000 quotes) is
more frequent than fare vedere le foto ‘make see the pictures’ (213.000). However, the Italian
construction (21h) is more frequent (90 quotes in Google) than the construction with the
verb dire, that is, dimmi quando arrivi ‘tell me when you arrive’ (55 quotes in Google).
14
The expressions mi hai arrabbiato and mi hai innamorato sound very odd to Italian speak-
ers. A Google search confirms that mi hai arrabbiato is not even used in very informal reg-
ister (less than 10 quotes, mostly reporting malapropism). The use of Mi hai innamorato is
more widespread (there are only about 30 quotes in Google), mainly due to the translations
of Spanish songs and because this expression is used in a popular novel, a love story written
for teenagers, where mi hai innamorato is explicitly faced with mi hai fatto innamorare and
implicitly evaluated as more expressive. I am grateful to Claudio Iacobini for this informa-
tion about mi hai arrabiato/innamorato.

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c. Fr faire observer/remarquer = Pt salientar

make observe/note = emphasize
d. Fr faire comprendre = Pt explicar
to make understand = to explain
e. Fr/It faire voir/far vedere (literal meaning of voir/vedere ‘to see’) = Pt/
Sp mostrar to make see = to show
f. It far morire = Pt matar
to make die = to kill
g. It farsi pagare = Pt cobrar
to make-oneself pay = to charge
h. It Fammi sapere quando arrivi = Pt Diz-me quando chegas
make.me know when arrive.2sg = tell.me when arrive. 2sg
i. It Fatti visitare da un ottimo psichiatra! = Pt Vai a um bom psiquiatra!
make.yourself seen by a good psychiatrist! = Go to a good psychiatrist!
In her review of the Portuguese translation of the newspaper Le Monde

Diplomatique, Araújo (2008: 171–180) found five Portuguese equivalents
for the French construction faire + Inf: (i) a lexical causative verb, like in
(21a–d); (ii) an analytic causative differing from fazer, like in (22a); (iii) a
nominalization, like in (22b); (iv) an analytic construction in which the
complement becomes an adjective or noun, like in (22c); and (v) a finite
completive construction or passive construction, like in (22d).
(22) a. Fr faire payer/faire fonctionner = Pt obrigar a pagar/pôr a funcionar
to make pay/to make function = to force to pay/to make function
b. Fr l’Union européenne tente de faire augmenter le PIB = Pt a União
Europeia tenta conseguir o aumento do PIB
the European Union tries to make increase the GDP = the European
Union tries manage the increase of the GDP
‘The EU tries to increase the GDP’ = ‘The EU tries to manage a
growth of the GDP’
c. Fr faire entrendre la voix/faire disparaître = Pt tornar audível a voz/
pôr termo
to make hear the voice/to make disappear = to make the voice
audible/to end
d. Fr faire juger les dirigeants = Pt fazer com que os líderes sejam
julgados
to make judge the leaders = to make the leaders to be judged

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Fr Vous pouvez vous faire escroquer. = Pt Pode -se ser vigarizado.

you can yourself make swindled = can -oneself be swindled
‘You can make yourself swindled.’ = ‘You can be swindled.’
6. Diachronic evidence
The analytic causative constructions originate from Latin (see mainly

Norberg 1974 and Chamberlain 1986). Latin had two basic causative struc-
tures (see the examples at 23–24): the subjunctive finite complement con-
struction with the complementizer ut and the infinitival complement
construction. The second construction became more frequent than the
other in Late Latin (or, at least, in the early ages of Romance languages).
The Latin infinitival construction had an accusative structure (accusati-
vus cum infinitivo) and a dative structure in the later period (dativus cum
infinitivo).
In Classic Latin, as documented by Chamberlain (1986), one of the most
common causative verbs was iubere ‘to order’: it was generally followed by
a subordinate sentence with ut and subjunctive or by an accusativus cum
infinitivo, like in (23). The verb facere ‘to make’ could also be used in these
causative constructions, like in (24), but was less frequent:
(23) a. Populus Romanus iussit ut Sullae voluntas esset pro lege.
people Roman ordered that Sulla will was law
‘The Roman people ordered that Sulla’s will was made law.’ (apud
Cerbasi 1997: 166)
b. iusserunt simulacrum Iouis facere maius
ordered.3pl statue.acc of Jupiter build.inf bigger
‘They ordered to build a bigger statue of Jupiter.’ (Cicero, Catiline,
3.20)
(24) a. Faciam ut ejus diei locique meique semper meminerit.

make.fut.1sg that of his day place of me always remeber.subj.3sg
‘I’ll make him always remember me, and his day, and his place.’
(Plautus, Captivi, 4.6.3)
b. Qui nati coram me cernere letum fecisti.
what son me.acc witness.inf death made.2sg
‘(You) who forced me to witness the death of my son.’ (Virgil, Aeneid 2,
538–539)

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It is from causative verbs like iubere ‘to order’ that the infinitival comple-
ment (accusativus cum infinitivo) construction spreads to other verbs such
as facere ‘to make’. The type of construction exemplified in (24b) therefore
is the ancestor of the Romance infinitival complement causative construc-
tion. Chamberlain (1986) observes that since the fifth century the construc-
tion facere + Inf instead of facere + ut begins to spread and considerably
extends so that it become the norm from the sixth century (all the occur-
rences of facere registered from the sixth century appear with the infini-
tival complement). Norberg (1974) and Chamberlain (1986) suggest that
causative constructions with a greater degree of fusion of the predicates, i.e.
monoclausal structure, may have developed in the latest periods of Latin.
Infinitival causative constructions were already solidly established in
Latin-Romance linguistic data in the Old period of Romance languages
(see Chamberlain 1986, Herman 1989, Pearce 1990, Davies 1995, Soares da
Silva 1999, Sousa Fernández 1999, Vieira da Silva 2003). Four linguistic
facts justify this assertion. Firstly, the infinitival complementation appears
as the standard option (instead of the finite complementation) in Latin-
Romance texts, both in Latin-Gaulish texts of the sixth and eleventh cen-
turies (Chamberlain 1986), and in Latin-Iberian texts of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries (Vieira da Silva 2003). The clear predominance of the
infinitival complementation remained in the Old period of the Romance
languages. Secondly, the mono-clausal structure was consolidated both in
Latin-Romance texts and in texts of the Old period of the Romance lan-
guages, being sometimes even more frequent than the bi-clausal structure.
Chamberlain (1986: 135) suggests that the two syntactic structures with
the Latin facere and the French faire already existed in Late Latin and Old
French in the form of a free variation, but the mono-clausal construction
was supposedly more frequent than the bi-clausal one. Thirdly, over these
periods the development of the dativus cum infinitivo (which seems to ori-
ginate from Latin, according to Norberg 1974) construction takes place.
The dative construction predominates over the alternative and older accu-
sative construction in the VV structure. Surprisingly, the dative construc-
tion is rarely attested in Chamberlain’s (1986) Latin-Gaulish corpus, while
the alternate accusative construction is not found at all in the Latin-Iberian
corpus of Vieira da Silva (2003).15 Finally, the correlation between the case
15
According to Vieira da Silva (2003: 257), the almost absent dative construction in the
Latin-Gaulish corpus may not be representative of the reality of language but may be
explained by the criteria adopted by Chamberlain for data presentation and classification.

Authenticated
marking of the causee (i.e. the subject of the infinitival clause) and the infin-
itive syntactic pattern, which is typical of Modern Romance (and does not
exist in Classic Latin) goes back to the Old period of Romance languages.
Recall that it consists in marking the dative with the transitive infinitive
and the accusative with the intransitive infinitive. All this implies an evolu-
tion towards grammaticalization of the analytic causative construction.
Since the first stages of Romance languages, infinitival constructions
with ‘to make’ exhibit a higher level of structural integration than infini-
tival constructions with ‘to let’ and the (Iberian) ‘to order’. But there is a
divergence between Romance languages in the evolution of causative con-
structions with ‘to make’: on the one side, French and Italian faire/fare + Inf
lost the VOV biclausal construction and the subjunctive finite construc-
tion; on the other side, Portuguese and Spanish fazer/hacer + Inf kept the
alternation between VV monoclausal, VOV biclausal and finite construc-
tions. This means that French and Italian faire/fare + Inf evolved towards
greater grammaticalization.16
Let us now analyze the evolution of causative constructions in Por
tuguese and Spanish more closely. Davies (1995, 2000) concludes in his
research about the evolution of causative constructions in Spanish and
Portuguese that Portuguese and Spanish are the Romance languages
where the greatest changes occurred as regards the evolution of infiniti-
val complement causative constructions (regardless of the causative verb),
viz. changes that configure a more general shift from mono-clausal to bi-
clausal structures. Davies identifies four changes from the old to the mod-
ern period that went faster in Portuguese than in Spanish: (i) the spread
of the pronoun se in the infinitival clause; (ii) the possibility to block clitic
climbing; (iii) the shift in case marking of the transitive infinitive subject
from dative to accusative and (iv) the change in word order with full nom-
inals from Verb–Subject (VS) to Subject–Verb (SV) with intransitive infin-
itives in Portuguese and transitive infinitives in Spanish. These changes
are illustrated with Portuguese examples in (25)–(28), taken from Davies
(1995: 107, 2000: 112–113), where (25a) to (28a) represent the older features
Chamberlain’s analysis focuses on the contiguity of the two verbs (that is, on the fact that
the sequence of the two verbs is interrupted or not), while Vieira da Silva’s analysis, which
follows Pearce’s criteria (1990), takes case marking as a relevant element.
16
It has to be noted too that causative, perception, control, and raising verbs selecting
infinitival complements would have a more auxiliary-like character in Old Romance than
in Modern Romance (see, among others, Pearce 1990 and Martins 2004, 2006). See also
information referred to in the next pages about these verbs.

Authenticated
(of Old Portuguese) and (25b) to (28b) the newest features (of Modern
Brazilian Portuguese):
(25) a. e fez alguõuõs outra vez bautizar
and had others again baptize.inf
‘and he had others (be) rebaptized’
(Crónica Geral de Espanha de 1344 198: 1) [-se]
b. o sistema que faz a raça humana se desenvolver
the system that makes the race human refl develop.inf
‘the system that makes the human race develop’
(BrazFal 2: 52: 1409) [+se]
(26) a. Deus me lhe leixe fazer tal serviço
God me him.dat let do.inf such service
‘that God might let me do such a service for him’
(Demanda do Santo Graal 221: 3 [c.1400] [cl+cl]
b. E que podias fazer senão deixá-lo enganar-te
and what could do.inf except let.inf-him.acc deceive.inf-you
‘And what could you do except let him deceive you?’
(Pobres 126: 3) [cl–cl]
(27) a. fez-lhe adorar a figura da cara
made-him.dat worship.inf the statue of.the face
‘He made him worship the statue of the face.’
(Estória do muy nobre Vespesiano 21: 1 [1300s] [DAT]
b. faziam-na tomar o cavalo e seguir o marido
made-her.acc take.inf the horse and follow.inf the husband
‘they made her take her horse and follow her husband’
(BrazSS: 153: 3) [ACC]
(28) a. fez ante si viir seu filho Recarredo
made before him come.inf his son R.
‘he made his son R. come before him’
(Crónica Geral de Espanha de 1344 199: 1) [VS]
b. fazer o país chegar aos destinos
make the nation rise.inf to.the destiny
‘to make the nation rise to its destiny’ (BrazSS 227: 2) [SV]
Davies (1995, 2000) points out that these changes started with percep-
tion verbs (ver ‘to see’ and ouvir/oír ‘to hear’), and then spread to causative
verbs like deixar/dejar ‘to let’, permitir ‘to permit’, obrigar/obligar ‘to oblige’

Authenticated
and ordenar ‘to order’, to finally reach the ‘core’ causatives like fazer/hacer
‘to make’ and mandar ‘to order’ only at the end of the process.
Martins (2004, 2006) also observes these changes with causative
and perception verbs but integrates them into a more general trend of
Portuguese infinitival constructions to change from a “more reduced” to
a “less reduced (functional)” clause structures which also affects control
structures (for example with the verb querer ‘to want’) and other raising
structures (like with the modal verb poder ‘may’). According to Martins
(2004, 2006), this general evolution involves three main changes from Old
to Modern Portuguese, viz. (i) the emergence of the inflected infinitive in
the clausal complements of causative and perception verbs,17 (ii) the emer-
gence of predicative negation in the infinitival clause, like in (29), and (iii)
the loss of obligatory clitic climbing,18 like in (26b) and (30):
(29) O médico mandou-o não beber vinho.
the doctor sent-him.acc not drink.inf wine
‘The doctor sent him to not drink wine.’
(30) Mandou entregar-lho.
sent give.inf-him.dat.it.acc
‘He/she sent to give it to him.’
Following the terms of our study, this change can be characterized as
a process of degrammaticalization involving the gradual attenuation of
syntactic and semantic features that characterize the mono-clausal struc-
ture (or, from an inverted perspective, the gradual strengthening of syn-
tactic and semantic features which characterize the bi-clausal structure).
We will try to explain this process in conceptual terms later on. Regarding
the origin and motive of this change – and particularly the emergence of
the inflected infinitive especially in the clausal complements of Portuguese
causative and perception verbs – the existing explanations are rather
diverse, even though they share certain aspects. Davies (1995), who only
17
The inflected infinitive is never an option with control and raising verbs, since control and
raising structures do not allow a referentially independent embedded subject.
18
Martins (2006: 339–340) observes that the option for cliticization within the infinitival
clause appears to have no significant quantitative expression in the Old Portuguese written
sources. She also refers that the absence of clitic climbing becomes quantitatively more
significant in the seventeenth century and points out that the contemporary situation with
both options being equally used was already established from the eighteenth century.

Authenticated
deals with causative structures, suggests that the increasing use of overt
referential infinitival subjects throughout the Middle Ages is the main rea-
son for change. Martins (2004, 2006) defends that structurally ambigu-
ous sentences involving coordination, ellipsis and independent inflected
infinitival clauses with imperative meaning (that already existed in Old
Portuguese grammar) triggered (i) the emergence of the inflected infini-
tive in the clausal complements of causative and perception verbs and (ii)
the emergence of predicative negation and cliticization in the infinitival
complements of causative, perception, control and raising verbs.
The emergence of the inflected infinitive in the clausal complements of
causative and perception verbs in Portuguese from the sixteenth century
on (Maurer 1968; Martins 2004, 2006) is the most obvious manifestation of
this degrammaticalizing trend. This positions Portuguese in a remote stage
of grammaticalization of causative constructions compared to the other
Romance languages. The fact that the inflected infinitive construction is
closer to the simple infinitival biclausal construction (VOV) than the sim-
ple infinitival monoclausal construction (VV) may have favored the use of
the first construction.19
Still in the case of Portuguese, the data available in medieval texts show
that the VV mono-clausal construction and the VOV bi-clausal construc-
tion already coexisted in the period of Old Portuguese. They also show
that the mono-clausal construction is more frequently attested in Old
Portuguese texts than the bi-clausal one and that the predominance of
the mono-clausal construction is greater with the intransitive infinitive,
where the subject is generally marked in the dative (see Vieira da Silva
2003). This means that the hypotheses according to which the shift from
Old Portuguese to Modern Portuguese regarding causative and perception
verbs was due to the emergence of the bi-clausal construction cannot be
supported.20 What happened in the sixteenth century is that the bi-clausal
19
Spanish possesses a personal infinitive (Torrego 1998; Sitaridou 2002, 2009) that was
already expressed in Old Spanish as an independent infinitive with imperative value
(Beardsley 1921). Martins (2004: 220) views the parallelism between the Spanish personal
infinitive and the Portuguese inflected infinitive and the permeability of the Spanish hacer
+ Inf to the bi-clausal construction (compared to the equivalent causative in French and
Italian) as reasons to associate Spanish to Portuguese in the evolution of causative con-
structions. However, it is important to note that personal infinitives were never used with
causatives at any stage of the history of Spanish (Sitaridou 2002, 2009).
20
If the mono-clausal construction is early attested and if it is more frequent than the bi-
clausal construction in the Old period of the Romance languages (see above), the existence

Authenticated
construction reinforced the independence of the infinitival complement by

introducing structural features of the complement event with minor inte-
gration, as argued by Davies (1995, 2000) and Martins (2004, 2006).21
Our diachronic study about the Portuguese verb deixar ‘to let’ (Soares
da Silva 1999) and our synchronic study about the use of finite and infin-
itival complement constructions with causative and perception verbs in
Modern European and Brazilian Portuguese (Soares da Silva 2005) not only
confirm the degrammaticalization of infinitival complement constructions
with causative and perception verbs but also uncovers further specifica-
tions/restrictions as well as other evolutionary data. Degrammaticalization
is stronger with the transitive infinitive: there is a clear tendency of the
transitive infinitival construction to avoid subject dativization (by choos-
ing the accusative) and to prefer the word order of the VOV structure, that
is, verb–object–(embedded subject)–verb. The construction of deixar with
a transitive infinitive had the following evolution in our diachronic corpus
(of about 900 occurrences for deixar or its old form leixar + Inf): as regards
word order, it rises from 75% of VOV structure in Old Portuguese to 86.1%
of VOV structure in Modern Portuguese; as regards case marking of the
infinitival clause subject, dative case drops from 95.2% in Old Portuguese
to only 7% in Modern Portuguese. In our synchronic corpus of Modern
Portuguese (with about 5,000 occurrences of finite and infinitival comple-
ment constructions with causative and perception verbs), we could verify
that the preferred option with causative and perception verbs and transi-
tive infinitives is clearly the bi-clausal VOV construction (see the frequen-
cies mentioned in notes 8 and 11 earlier). The marking of the infinitival
clause subject in the dative is marginal with causative verbs and ungram-
matical with perception verbs.22 Some European Portuguese speakers do
not accept the VV and full nominal dative construction with fazer and a
of the bi-clausal construction might be viewed as a first manifestation of the gradual process
of degrammaticalization.
21
According to Martineau (1992), Middle French uses laisser and perception verbs more
frequently in the VOV structure and avoids the infinitival clause subject in the dative (and
thus differs from faire, that continues to be used systematically in the VV monoclausal con-
struction). This may be viewed as a certain degrammaticalizing tendency, but this change
may also indicate a diverging effect of the strong grammaticalizing tendency of faire + Inf.
22
Of a total number of 3,906 occurrences of infinitival complement constructions with
causative and perception verbs registered in European Portuguese texts, there are only 31
occurrences of full nominal datives and 16 of dative pronouns. For the Brazilian Portuguese
texts we found 2 occurrences only for full nominal datives and 21 for dative pronouns; of all
these dative occurrences, only 6 appeared with perception verbs.

Authenticated
transitive infinitive nor the VV and (full nominal or pronoun) dative con-
struction with perception verbs and transitive infinitives.
Our data emphasize another change in infinitival complement con-
structions with causative verbs that Davies (1995, 2000) does not mention,
viz. the increase of the VV mono-clausal construction with intransitive
infinitives. In fact, the VV construction with the verb deixar plus intransi-
tive infinitive rises from 62.2% in Old Portuguese to 87.7% in Modern
Portuguese. In our corpus of Modern Portuguese, the VV construction pre-
dominates with the causative verbs fazer and deixar (85.5% for fazer, 69.9%
for deixar, 50.1% for mandar; the frequency of VV being naturally higher
in the case of intransitive infinitives, cf. n. 11). This is however not true in
Brazilian Portuguese (37% for fazer, 41.3% for deixar, 14.1% for mandar).23
The same tendency towards an increase of the VV mono-clausal construc-
tion with intransitive infinitives was found by Sousa Fernández (1999) in
Galician with the causative mandar ‘to order’.
These results indicate a double trend in the evolution of Portuguese and
Spanish infinitival complement constructions with causative and percep-
tion verbs (for a more detailed analysis see Soares da Silva 2011). There is,
on the one hand, a constructional degrammaticalization, which happened
faster and is more obvious in Portuguese than in Spanish. This degram-
maticalization is the reason why Portuguese and Spanish diverge from
French and Italian with respect to the evolution of infinitival complement
constructions with causative and perception verbs. On the other hand, the
increase of the VV monoclausal construction with causative verbs and
intransitive infinitives shows that Portuguese and Spanish have followed
to a certain extent the general grammaticalizing tendency of Romance
causative constructions. Indeed, the intransitive infinitive favors a greater
level of event integration and consequently of constructional grammatical-
ization.
Coming back to the conceptual explanation proposed earlier of the
phenomenon of grammaticalization, we can now properly say that the dia-
chronic process of grammaticalization of analytic causative constructions
that occurred in French and Italian (especially with the causative verb faire/
The VV construction is clearly in minority when used with perception verbs in both
23
national varieties, and occurs almost always with the intransitive infinitive (40% for ver
and 9.1% for ouvir in European Portuguese; 15.5% for ver and 8.3% for ouvir in Brazilian
Portuguese).

Authenticated
fare) and in particular contexts, viz. that of the intransitive infinitive con-
structions in Portuguese and (probably) Spanish consists in a conceptual
process of subjectification or attenuation in subject control and subsequent
shift from an active subject to a mere conceptualizer (Langacker 1999). The
infinitival clause subject (or causee) gradually loses control over its own
activity or state and stops being the specific focus of the complement event.
As attenuation takes place, the activity or potency weakens and shifts from
the dominion of the causee to that of the causer.24 The main subject or
causer is the conceptualizer of the complement event as it conceptual-
izes the event on its own and is responsible for the effected event. (When
the conceptualizer does not coincide with the main subject or causer, the
speaker takes the perspective of the main subject.) The causer starts to exert
greater control on the complement event and gets more involved in this
event. Therefore, the causal relationship becomes more direct and more
dependent on the causer’s or the conceptualizer’s mental scanning and,
hence, becomes more subjective. According to Traugott’s (1989, 1995) con-
ception of subjectification, the causal relation becomes increasingly situ-
ated in the dominion of the conceptualizer (causer and speaker/hearer’s
domain).
The inverse diachronic process of degrammaticalization that takes place
in Portuguese and Spanish and that has its most visible manifestation in the
emergence of the inflected infinitive in Portuguese, represents a concep-
tual process of objectification of the infinitive subject or causee. The causee
becomes more independent and more engaged in the causal event; it goes
‘on stage’ as a focused object of attention, as an object of conceptualization.
This promotion of the causee puts a distance between the infinitival clause
and the conceptualizer (it increases the observer–observed asymmetry), so
that the complement event gains a certain independence and can be seen
‘from the outside’. In fact, the bigger the conceptual distance of an entity or
24
Another attenuation process in the different infinitival causative constructions involves
the main subject or causer and consists in going from a higher degree of causer control
in the mono-clausal construction to a lower degree of causer control in the bi-clausal
construction (which is even lower in the Portuguese inflected infinitival construction). But
this attenuation of the causer’s causal energy has no grammaticalizing effects. Still another
subjectification process in causative constructions goes from a direct causation expressed
by the infinitival complement construction to an inferred causation instantiated in the
finite complement construction (Vesterinen 2008, Soares da Silva 2008).

Authenticated
situation from the conceptualizer, the more this entity/situation is object-

ively construed. The Portuguese inflected infinitival causative construction
expresses the most objective construal of the caused event (for an analysis
of the Portuguese inflected infinitive in terms of objectification, see Soares
da Silva 2008).
7. Conclusions
A few conclusions may be drawn from this comparison of the degree of

grammaticalization of causative verbs and constructions in Portuguese,
Spanish, French and Italian. Firstly, analytic causative constructions in
Italian and French are more grammaticalized both in meaning (seman-
tic bleaching) and in synthesis (structural integration) than their Spanish
and Portuguese counterparts. Secondly, the evidence regarding the proto-
typical analytic causative (the causative ‘to make’) shows that the Italian
construction fare + Inf is semantically and structurally more grammat-
icalized than the French construction faire + Inf. Thirdly, Portuguese and
Spanish show an interesting process of relative degrammaticalization from
the Old to the Modern period that developed more rapidly and intensively
in Portuguese than in Spanish and involved both causative and percep-
tion verbs (as well as other infinitival constructions). The emergence of the
inflected infinitive in the clausal complements of causative and perception
verbs in Portuguese and the loss of obligatory clitic climbing and of other
elements which mark the independence of the clausal complement in the
infinitival complements of causative and perception verbs in Portuguese
and Spanish, are evidence of this degrammaticalization. This does not pre-
vent, however, Portuguese and Spanish from following the general gram-
maticalizing trend to a certain extent in the context of the intransitive
infinitive.
Fourthly, our results show a decreasing continuum of grammatical-
ization of causative constructions in Romance languages that starts with
Italian, goes to French, then Spanish and finally Portuguese. They con-
firm most of De Mulder & Lamiroy’s (2008) hypothesis of a down cline
of grammaticalization of Romance languages that starts with French, goes
to Italian, then Spanish, and finally Portuguese and Romanian. Finally, the
degree of grammaticalization of causative constructions is a sum of sev-
eral factors, viz. conceptual factors (causal force dynamics, causal inde-

Authenticated
pendence, subjectification, objectification, perspectivization, and other

construal operations), structural factors (event structural integration) and
social factors (which were not analyzed here). Romance languages pay
much more perspectival attention to the different parts and relations of
the causative episode and show greater continuum of causing/caused event
integration than other languages, like German languages. This means that,
globally and comparatively, the grammaticalization of causative construc-
tions in Romance languages is not emphasized. Portuguese shows greater
elaboration of the causative episode, greater causal independence and
greater flexibility in the combination of causative verbs and causative con-
structions than the remaining Romance languages.
Further research on the grammaticalization of causative constructions
in Romance languages is obviously necessary. We suggest three research
topics. First, (more) quantitative corpus analyses are needed to confirm
the cline of grammaticalization of causative constructions in Romance
languages suggested here and to define more rigorously the motivations,
mechanisms and the approximate chronology of syntactic and semantic
changes occurred. Specifically, some differences in the degree of gram-
maticalization between Romance languages referred to in this study need
robust corpus-based analysis: for example, the higher degree of construc-
tional grammaticalization of the Italian fare + Inf (and, by extension, of
the VV monoclausal structure regardless of the causative verb used in it)
compared to the French faire + Inf (and the VV monoclausal structure),
and the higher degree of constructional grammaticalization of the Spanish
hacer + Inf compared to the Portuguese fazer + Inf in the context of the
VV monoclausal structure (and also the higher degree of grammatical-
ization of the Spanish monoclausal structure with other causative verbs).
A second research topic consists in finding the socio-linguistic and socio-
historical factors that underlie the different stages of grammaticalization
of causative constructions in Romance and how these social factors are
related to the conceptual and structural factors mentioned here. Finally,
it is important to study the grammaticalization and degrammaticalization
processes of causative constructions in the wider context of infinitival con-
structions in Romance and compare them with infinitival complements of
perception verbs in the first place and then with control and raising verbs.
A relevant issue to tackle is to find out the extent to which construction
meaning influences the (de)grammaticalization process and the extent to
which this process is itself influenced by the meaning of the main verb.

Authenticated
Abbreviations
acc accusative refl reflexive

dat dative sg singular
Fr French Sp Spanish
fut future subj subjunctive
inf infinitive SV subject–verb
infl inf inflected infinitive VOV verb–object–verb
It Italian VS verb–subject
pl plural VSV verb–subject–verb
Pt Portuguese VV verb–verb
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Author’s address:
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Faculdade de Filosofia
P-4710-297 Braga
Portugal
assilva@braga.ucp.pt

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Stages of grammaticalization of causative verbs

and constructions in Portuguese, Spanish,

Augusto Soares da Silva

Keywords: causative constructions, causative verbs, degrammaticalization,

Folia Linguistica 46/2 (2012), 513–552. doi 10.1515/flin.2012.018

This paper aims to compare the stages of grammaticalization in meaning

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guages with French as the most grammaticalized language, followed by

2. Grammaticalization of analytic causative constructions

Analytic causative constructions involve two-verb structures in which the

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force dynamics model, causative verbs lexicalize different force dynamic

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3. Causative verbs, causal force dynamics, and semantic

Romance analytic causative verbs will be analyzed according to three dif-

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Table 1. Causative verbs and semantic types of causation

According to the semantic map of causation theorized by Talmy (1988,

Table 2. Causative verbs and force dynamic patterns

lexicological, can also be applied to grammar. Therefore, the semasiological perspective

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ment) and (iv) extended letting (potential impingement). ‘Extended causa-

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Nevertheless, the French verb laisser has a narrower semasiological

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(‘to go away’) of the Latin and proto-Romance structure, now expressed by

Finally, we will compare the semantic bleaching of causative verbs and

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‘to take’ are exceptions. On the contrary, fazer/hacer/faire/fare ‘to make’

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4. Causative constructions, causal (in)dependence and

After studying analytic causative verbs, we will now examine (infinitival)

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inflected infinitive construction, the inflected infinitive does not occur in

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Table 3. Distributional range of causative constructions

(7) a. A Maria fez/mandou/deixou os miúdos (-os) correr

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Table 4. Structural features of the three infinitival causative constructions

pendent clause would be (SV). Thus the complement event is construed

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Burzio (1978: 25) presents the following sentence as grammatical:

(i) Gli lascerò parlare Giovanni.

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(9) Le bruit les fait se lever.

To be precise, it is not only fare + Inf that seems to be more integrated

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tive, whereas such a construction is more difficult in Portuguese, like

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(17) Juan hizo traer un regalo a su mujer.

Figure 3 represents the increasing cline of event structural integration

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Another evidence of this continuum is the causative-reflexive construc-

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(20) a. Frédéric se fit ramener vers les boulevards

In relation to causative constructions with ‘to let’, we observe less

PtVSV Pt/Sp/Fr/ItVOV PtVV SpVV FrVV ItVV

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5. Onomasiological evidence

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c. Fr faire observer/remarquer = Pt salientar

3. Causative verbs, causal force dynamics, and semantic

4. Causative constructions, causal (in)dependence and