Typological Database of the Volga-Kama Finno-Ugric Languages

(Udmurt)

TrCeeP

TrCeeP: The causee appears in the same position/form as the patient of a transitive verb in a non-causative sentence.

(1)	saša	gožtet-ez	gožt-i-z.
	Sasha	letter‑ACC	write‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha wrote the letter.’ (Tánczos 2015: 29)

(2)	saša	maša-jez	gožtet-ez	gožty-t-i-z.
	Sashaa	Masha‑ACC	letter‑ACC	write‑CAUS‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha made Masha write the letter.’ (Tánczos 2015: 30)

(3)	saša	pi-jez	kńiga-jez	lydźy-t-i-z.
	Sasha	boy‑ACC	book‑ACC	read‑CAUS‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha made the/a boy read the book.’ (Tánczos 2015: 107)

(4)	saša	maša-jez	ivan-ez	žugy-t-i-z.
	Sasha	Masha‑ACC	Ivan‑ACC	beat‑CAUS‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha had Masha beat up Ivan.’ (Tánczos 2015: 104)

(5)	saša	maša-jez	kńiga-jez	lydźy-t-i-z.
	Sasha	Masha‑ACC	book‑ACC	read‑CAUS‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha made Masha read the book.’ (Tánczos 2015: 104)

(6)	saša	kńiga-jez	maša-jez	lydźy-t-i-z.
	Sasha	book‑ACC	Masha‑ACC	read‑CAUS‑PST‑3SG
	’Sasha made Masha read the book.’ (Tánczos 2015: 104)

In Udmurt, the causative forms of transitive constructions have a nominative causer and an accusative causee, which means that in the presence of a morphologically marked (definite) direct object there will be at least two accusative noun phrases in the sentence (2) (cf Kozmács 2002a: 44). Causees are always morphologically marked irrespective of whether they are definite or indefinite (3) (Tánczos 2015: 106–107). Word order is fixed when these arguments are both animate: out of the two accusative arguments the causee has to precede the direct object (4). In case the animacy features of the accusative arguments are different, their word order can vary and the order of the direct object and the causee will not affect the interpretation (5)–(6). (Tánczos 2015: 104–105)

Author: Laura Horváth

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