CAUSE AND MAKE IN SEMANTIC REPRESENTATION

Abstract

This paper deals with the structural difference between cause and make in terms of semantic representation. It is argued that the semantic structure of cause with a to-infinitive is more complex than that of make with a bare infinitive, in that the former includes the function GO as the second argument of CAUSE, whereas the latter does not. It is shown through discussion that the to-infinitive occurring with some causative verbs like cause can be interpreted as GOAL, as in the case of the preposition to. Furthermore, it is also argued that the passive of make with the to-infinitive complement does not constitute a counterexample to the present analysis.