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Maftuna Turayeva, Termez State University, Foreign Languages Faculty
LEXICAL CAUSATIVE VERBS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: DIFFICULTIES
FOR UZBEK STUDENTS
M. Turayeva
Abstract. This article outlines how learning English as a foreign or
second language, Uzbek students have to encounter a large group of verbs
collectively called “causative verbs.” Typologically speaking, English belongs
to the family of languages which encode two major semantic components
“CAUSE” and “CHANGE OF STATE” in a single lexical unit (i.e. a single word)
whereas other languages prefer to express these semantic components
separately via multiple separate lexical units.
Keywords. Lexical parameter, causative verbs, alternating verbs,
unaccusative/ergative verbs, psychological or psych verbs, locative verbs.
1.Introduction
While the speaker of each language tries to convey his conceptual
intentions with words, natural languages can be drastically different from
one another in the ways that they put a concept into a word or, in other
words, how they lexicalize a concept. A word in one language, therefore, can
be morphologically simple while the same concept in another language
requires comparatively complex forms, incorporating more than a single
semantic component and more than one morpheme. This observation has
recently been articulated into a number of theories (for example, Talmy,
1985; Pinker, 1989) [1,2] that explain and predict how different languages
follow distinctive lexicalization patterns which are, nevertheless, framed
within some natural linguistic constraints. Some of these are thought to
belong to a system known as Universal Grammar, a human linguistic
endowment whose content was previously elaborated as consisting of
primarily syntactic principles and syntactic parameters. The relatively novel
concept of lexical parameterization proposed by Juffs (1996) [3], has been
applied to English and Chinese and has manifested itself as a valid
theoretical-linguistic proposal because of the empirical support it receives
from language acquisition research. Based on this “lexical parameter”
theory, different languages can actually follow different word-formation
patterns that affect both the morphological and the subcategorization
properties of the words in the language. In this paper, it will be shown that
the lexical parameter operating in a language has a far-reaching effect on
how its speakers generate syntactic constructions.
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2. Material and Methods
When these speakers learn a second language, their mother tongue’s
lexical parameter can be transferred to the second language system and can
also affect how the second language learners understand and produce
certain syntactic constructions in the target language. In some cases learners
are disadvantaged rather than aided by the lexical parameter that they
transfer from their native language. In order to illustrate the above case, a
certain class of verbs namely “causative verbs” in the Uzbek language are
pitted against those in the English language, and it will be proved that the
lexical parameter that operates in each of the two languages is indeed
different. Then, some empirical evidence gained from previous second
language acquisition research studies will be presented to show how Uzbek
students learning English as a foreign language have considerable difficulty
in acquiring this group of verbs. Finally, it will be suggested how the
traditional teaching methodology can be improved to facilitate the
acquisition of English lexical causatives by Uzbek EFL learners.
3.The Methods and Approaches
Following the definition given by Shibatani (1976) [4] the terms
‘causatives’ or ‘lexical causatives’ or ‘causative verbs’ refers to any verbs that
denote in their meanings an eventuality encompassing a causing action and
the resulting change of state. In terms of formal lexical semantic
components, a causative verb or lexical causative is usually composed of two
major semantic components: CAUSE, representing the action which the
agent performs on a theme or a patient and CHANGE OF STATE,
representing the result or the effect on the theme or the patient brought
about by the action of the agent. For example, in the verb “open” as in “John
opened the door”, the CAUSE component in the meaning of
the verb is “to turn a certain thing into a certain state” while the CHANGE OF
STATE component is “to be in a state of being uncovered.”
Syntactically, causatives are usually transitive or dyadic (i.e. taking two
arguments) and hence appear to be transitive on the surface. For instance,
the verb “open” is transitive or dyadic in such a structure as “John opened
the door” with two arguments including “John” and “the door.” In
appropriate contextual and pragmatic conditions, some of these causatives
may appear in an intransitive frame and appear to be taking only one
argument (i.e. monadic). For example, the verb “open” in such a sentence as
“the door opened” with only one argument which is “the door” is intransitive
or monadic. These verbs are said to be ‘alternating’ between two different
syntactic frames (i.e. transitive and intransitive) and thus called “alternating
verbs.” With the above definition, a large number of verbs in English can be
considered “causative verbs.” Traditionally, studies of causative verbs
usually include these 3 subclasses.
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4.Results and Discussion
1. Causative/ Unaccusative verbs which refer to verbs involving certain
causation and the resulting state such as “melt”, “grow”, “change”, “turn”,
“open”, “close”, etc. Importantly, many causative verbs in this sub-class can
alternate between transitive and intransitive frames. In an intransitive
structure, they are called “unaccusative or ergative verbs”. For example, the
causative “melt” in “The sun melts the ice” and the unaccusative or ergative
“melt” in “The ice melts.”
2. Psychological or Psych verbs which can be divided into Causer-Subject
and Causer-Object psych verbs. An example of Causer-Subject psych verbs
is “frighten” as in “The tiger frightens the child”, and an example of Causer-
Object psych verb is “fear” as in “The child fears the tiger”. Notice that only
Causer Subject ones are considered “ causative verbs ”
3. Locative verbs which refer to verbs denoting relationship between
entities (namely, “content” and “container”) in an act of relocation. These
verbs can be divided into three sub-classes: alternating locative verbs such
as “spread” as in “She spread the bread with butter” or “He spread butter
onto the bread”, non-alternating ‘content’ verbs such as “pour” as in “He
poured water into the glass” and non-alternating ‘container’ verbs such as
“pave” as in “He paved the floor with bricks”.
English lexical causatives seem to present more than a fair share of
difficulty compared to other groups of verbs to Uzbek students learning
English as a foreign or second language. There are, however, encouraging
cases of Uzbek EFL students who could successfully acquire English lexical
Causative/
Unaccusat
ive Verbs
Psychologi
cal or
Psych
Verbs
Locative
Verbs
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causative verbs such as those studying in an input-rich environment which
was a country of the native speakers of English (Thepsura, 2005).[5] A
number of insights into how English verbs should be learned were gained
from these high-achieving English learners. These include exceptional level
of motivation to integrate themselves into the target culture or community,
regular exposure to standard English-medium materials (e.g. magazines,
websites and television), and avoidance of overuse of the mother tongue
which is the source of negative transfer (i.e. transfer of knowledge from L1
that cause L2 production or interpretation to be deviant or erroneous). With
a large number of EFL students nowadays, these successful students seem
to form a small exceptional group of high achievers who could discover the
right way to learn a foreign language all by themselves (Thepsura, 1998).[6]
Based on personal communication, these successful EFL learners often
emphasized the considerable and regularly-supplied input or “primary
linguistic data” in their daily lives.
4.Conclusion
What about the rest of EFL Uzbek students, especially the poorly-
motivated ones in an input-impoverished environment in Uzbekistan who
are struggling with English lexical causative verbs of various classes? The
traditional teaching methods which emphasize verbal explanation (in
students’ mother tongue), translation and sentence construction practices
do not seem to be either sufficient or effective any longer, considering the
results from the studies presented above. Perhaps what is lacking in the
pedagogical practice in teaching English lexical causative verbs in the Uzbek
contexts nowadays is consideration of insights from second language
acquisition researchers who, at least, hint at how subtle aspects of grammar
such as lexical causative verbs might be or should be taught. Here are some
conclusions from language acquisition researchers that might lead to
development of teaching innovations. The Lexical Parameter Theory (1996)
based on the Theory of Universal Grammar (UG) (Chomsky, 1993) [7]
suggests that certain grammatical structures can be acquired without any
instructions because human beings with normally functioning brains are
pre-programmed to naturally acquire them provided that they are exposed
to the relevant input (aka ‘primary linguistic data’) or positive evidence
which trigger the setting or re-setting of parameters, the dropping of
overgeneralizations and subsequently the shaping of the grammar of a
particular language. This means that English teachers might have to pay
more attention to the quantity and quality of the relevant input that they
give to their students. The environment in which the linguistic input is
naturally and regularly supplied is also important (Thepsura, 2005). It must
be kept in mind, nevertheless, while the natural and effortless aided
acquisition of grammar in first language acquisition is unanimously
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confirmed by researchers, there is still controversy as to the accessibility in
second language acquisition. This means extra efforts are needed on the part
of the teacher to make more accessible. This certainly requires extensive
research and experiments as for the cognitive nature of L2 learners. As an
example of such an effort, Thepsura & Sriboonyong (2006a,b), [8] after
having verified with results from production and grammaticality judgment
pre-tests that a sub-class of English causative verbs, namely “Causer-
subject” psych verbs (e.g. interest, frighten) posed considerable learning
challenges to Uzbek EFL students, have experimented on an innovative
pedagogical method which integrated the use of the right hemisphere of the
brain with significantly encouraging results which must be built upon in the
future.
References:
1. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: semantic structure in lexical
patterns. In T. Shopen (Eds.),
Language typology and syntactic description
(pp. 57-149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of
argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
3. Juffs, A. (1996).
Learnability and the lexicon: Theories and second
language acquisition research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
4. Shibatani, M., ed. (1976).
Syntax and semantics, Vol VI, The grammar
of causative constructions. New York: Academic Press.
5. Thepsura, S. (2005). Learnability and the acquisition of English lexical
causatives.
Journal of Liberal Arts: Ubon Ratchathani University, 2(1), 181-
208.
6. Thepsura, S. (1998). The Acquisition of Lexical Causatives by Thai EFL
Learners. Unpublished Master’s research paper, Georgetown University,
Washington D.C.
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honor of Sylvain Bromberger (pp. 1-52). Cambridge: MIT Press.
8. Thepsura, S. & Sriboonyong, T. (2006a).
Is a picture worth a thousand
words? (Using pictures to teach grammar). Paper presented at the 2nd
CamTESOL, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
