Causativization in Hupa

In this paper I analyze the morphosyntactic alternations involving the causative morpheme ̃in Hupa, an Athapaskan language. The distribution of this morpheme is of interest because it is intermediate between that of what might be called a ‘lexical’ causative, and that of a syntactic causative which takes a clausal complement. I will argue that a uniform treatment may be given for ̃in structural terms; that is, that its distribution is determined by syntactic considerations, such that it always appears as a causative (light) verbal head with the same type of complement. The analysis I propose provides an identical syntactic treatment for two sets of environments, one of which exhibits idiosyncrasies associated with Lexical processes, and one of which does not; this raises questions concerning the applicability of a syntactic account for all of the cases in question. I thus devote the concluding sections of the paper to a discussion of the resolution to this question, and its implications for the relationship between syntax and argument structure. In addition, I discuss the implications of the discussion for analyses of the Transitivity Alternation, focussing on questions surrounding the morphology found in intransitive/transitive pairs.