The Syntax of Non-Verbal Causation: The Causative Apomorphy of \u27From\u27 in Greek and Germanic Languages

This is a study of the meaning and syntax of non-(lexical)verbal causation. Macroscopically, it examines the preposition \u27from\u27 as attested in contexts like X is/comes from Y . Syntactic diagnostics are applied to formally distinguish the causative from the spatial interpretations of `from\u27-PPs in Greek, English, Dutch, and German. The syntactic landscape of causative \u27from\u27 will turn out to be very minimal with \u27from\u27 directly selecting the Cause-DP, in contradistinction to its spatial counterpart, where \u27from\u27 always selects for another PP layer. More microscopically then I focus on the causative interpretations only, which are particularly revealing because (i) they give an in-depth view of CAUSE, stripped of all verbal layers--traditionally considered the locus of CAUSE--suggesting that the source of causation in non-(lexical)verbal environments has to be the preposition per se and (ii) they single-handedly provide a rudimentary structure for causation, where \u27from\u27 introduces the Cause in its complement and is predicated of the Causee. Finally, with a basic predicational structure in place, I offer a detailed cross-linguistic account for the syntactic mechanism that forces the use of particle verbs in causative \u27from\u27-less environments