Development of the Periphrastic Causative Construction with a Causative Marker Thām in Thai

Abstract

Periphrastic causative constructions have been extensively studied in linguistics. However, earlier explorations have predominantly concentrated on their characteristics from a synchronic perspective. This research aims to enhance previous investigations by employing a constructionist approach to analyze the developmental trajectory of the Thai analytic causative construction with a causative marker thām and to discuss the constructional pathway it follows. Contexts with a lexical item thām were gathered from three distinct sources: The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, Vajirayana Digital Library, and Thai National Corpus. Analysis revealed reveals that the serial verb construction encompassing thām was the source of development. This construction evolved into the transitive resultative construction through the lexical aspect extension of the verb following thām. Eventually, the analytic causative construction emerged in the mid-20th century, characterized by an increased schematicity and a decreased semantic compositionality. The trajectory adheres to an elaboration pathway, where the simpler constructions with a higher degree of event and syntactic integration developed into more intricate ones with a lower degree of event and syntactic integration. The present study lays the groundwork for typological research into periphrastic causative constructions with a causative marker originally denoting ‘to make’, which are widespread in Southeast Asian languages.

Keywords

• causative constructions
• constructional change
• schematicity
• semantic compositionality