The -ke ha Causative Construction in Korean - Causative or Not?: A Crosslinguistic Perspective

Abstract

The Korean -ke ha causative construction has a property that cannot be regarded as characterisitic of causative constructions: the use of the purposive marker(or the presence of a subordinate purpose clause). This raises a question as to whether or not the consturction should be regarded as causative. In this paper, I will demonstrate that the Korean -ke ha type (or, more generally, the PURP type) of causative construction is widely attested in the languages of the world. I will further substantiate the existence of this type of causative construction by using data (i) from languages which use purposive elements in leiu of lexical verbs of cause in order to express causation, (ii) from lanuages which have purposeve elements fossilized in their morphological causative verbs, and (iii) also from languages in which causative affixes bear a strong resemblance to purposive elements.