Clausal Causal Markers in the Languages of Europe: A Database

The present typological database accumulates clausal causal markers in the languages of Europe. Clausal causal markers are used in polypredicative constructions (cf. I fell down, because the floor was slippery). The database contains more than 100 markers from Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, German, English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Modern Greek, Albanian, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Basque, Chuvash, and Georgian (currently 30 languages in total). The data were collected from grammars and language corpora and via elicitation.

The typological parameters taken into consideration are:

1) semantic varieties of causal meanings: direct causal meaning (I fell down, because the floor was slippery); motive (As it is your birthday today, I have bought you a present); inferential (Peter is at home, because he is not at work); illocutionary-imperative (Wrap it up with your packing, or (= because) you'll be late for your train); illocutionary-question (How much are the cucumbers, because I want to take a couple of kilos?); logic (It is a triangle, because it has three angles);

2) assessment (positive vs. negative);

3) reality of the cause;

4) stylistic features;

5) morphosyntactic features (position of the marker within the clause, preposition vs. postposition of the causal clause; occurrence in emphatic constructions and under negation, etc.)

6) diachronic information and polysemy patterns.

Further updates and expansion of the database are possible.

The database was created at the Institute for Linguistic Studies, RAS with support from the Russian Science Foundation grant # 18-18-00472 “Causal Constructions in World Languages (Semantics and Typology)”.