Towards an Account of Causation in 
a Multilingual Text Generation 
System 
Liesbeth Degand* 
Catholic University of Louvam 
PSP/EXCO 
Voie du Roman Pays, 20 
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium 
e-mail: degand@exco.ucl.ac.be 
Abstract: Causation is a very pervasive 
phenomenom in natural language which can be 
expressed by numerous linguistic alternatives. 
Any language user or natural language 
generation system is thus confronted with the 
.problem of choosing one alternative over 
another. In this paper, I analyze the semantic 
constraints determining the selection of analytic 
causatives in Dutch and how this can be 
accounted for in a systemic functional 
generation system. 
Keywords: Multilingual Text Generation, 
Systexiaic Functional Linguistics, Analytic 
causatives, Dutch. 
1. Introduction 
Causation 1 has been a topic of linguistic 
investigation for many years. I believe two main 
reasons underly this interest of linguists in the 
phenomenon: (i) causative constructions build a good 
proving ground for many questions of theoretical 
interest (Herschensohn 1981), and (ii) causation can 
be expressed in natural language by numerous 
linguistic alternatives. Altenberg (1984) has in fact 
identified nearly one hundred possible explicit links 
for encoding a causal relation between two 
propositions. Any language user is thus confronted 
with the problem of choosing one alternative over 
another. But, how is this choice constrained? Why 
does a language user choose one link over another? 
This same question arises in natural language 
* Research assistant at the National Fund for 
Scientific Research, Belgium. 
1 In this paper, we will distinguish the 
linguistic term "causation" from the scientific notion 
of "causality" in the physical world. "For the latter, 
the totality of phenomena constitutes a causal 
continuum of which any conceptually delimited 
portion, an "event", is understood as relating causally 
outside itself and containing causal relations within" 
(Talmy 1976:47). In contrast, causation designates a 
relation that is interpreted by the speaker as being a 
relation between a cause and an effect, cf. definition 
below. 
108 
generation, where it is crucial that the rules to select a 
specific linguistic structure be made explicit. Text 
generation is a process in which meaning - 
represented as non-linguistic knowledge at a higher 
level of abstraction than wordings - is organised and 
re-expressed over a number of steps so that it can be 
presented as worded units. So, in 9rder to use and 
generate the different possible causative constructions 
properly, we have to know what their underlying 
meaning is. 
In accordance with the 'one meaning, one 
form' principle advocated by linguists working in a 
semiotic approach (e.g. Bolinger 1968; Wierzbicka 
1988; Halliday 1978), I assume that all these different 
causative constructions have their specific meanings 
and functions - different semantics being encoded in 
different lexicogrammatical structures. This view on 
language pervades in the Systemic Functional 
approach where it is posited that the relation between 
semantics and lexicogranunar is a 'natural', non- 
arbitrary one (cf. Halliday 1985:xiii-xxxv), in other 
words, semantics and lexicogrammar are dependent 
on one another. Language is interpreted as a resource 
for making meanings, which is organised 
functionally, textually, and communicatively. This 
makes it also suitable as a theoretical foundation for 
(monolingual and multilingual) text generation (see 
also, Matthiessen and Bateman 1991; Batemam 
Matthiessen and Zeng in prep.). 
In this paper, I will discuss some aspects of 
the generation of Dutch analytic causative 
constructions in a systemic multilingual grammar for 
generation (Bateman, Matthiessen, Zeng in 
preperation), currently under development at Sydney 
University and in the project KOMET at GMD/IPSI, 
Darmstadt. It is based on Nigel (Mann 1985), a 
systemic computational grammar of English for 
generation developed in the Penman Project at 
ISI/USC. Languages worked on currently include 
English (Matthiessen 1990), German (Teich 1992), 
Dutch (Degand 1993a), Chinese, Japanese, and 
French. The multilingual grammar follows the 
assumption of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) 
that commonality across languages is functional in the 
first instance, not structural or realizational: 
functionality has to be preserved across languages, but 
structural realizations may very well differ (Bateman, 
Matthiessen, Nanri, Zeng 1991). This means that 
within a functional framework different languages can 
be treated in a similar way. The common functionality 
is realized stratum by stratum in the linguistic system 
(composed of the three strata: semantics, 
lexicogrammar, and phonology). Within a particular 
stratum, it is expressed by the paradigmatic, systemic 
organization of that strattun in the first instance, and 
only secondarily by the syntagmatic organization 
(structural realization). With this kind of 
organization of (multilingual) linguistic resources, it 
is ensured that the multilingual system is more than 
a loosely coordinated set of separate generation 
7th Intemationai Generation Workshop 
systems and that new language components can be 
added to the system without revising the overall 
organization (see also, Degand 1993b). 
After a brief sketch of the lexicogrammafical 
potential for expressing causation in Dutch, I will 
concentrate on the so-called analytic (or periphrastic) 
causative construction and show how this particular 
type of causative construction can be realized in a 
systemic mulfilingual grammar for generation, taking 
into account the theoretical elaborations developed in 
Degand (to appear). The importance of this 
theoretical basis for the computational account will be 
amply illustrated. 
2. The lexi¢ogrammatical potential for 
expressing causation 
The expression of causation is ubiquitous in 
all forms of communication and in natural language 
in particular. The examples given below illustrate 
this multitude of different types of causal expressions 
in Dutch. Note that these examples have been 
grouped according to their structural realization, since 
it was my aim to illustrate the wide lexicogrammafical 
variation in this area. This does not mean that the 
subexamples can .always be used as alternatives for 
each other, neither does it mean that the English 
translations could be used in a same context (see 
Section 3. I.). 
. i. Hij blijft thuis, want hij is ziek. 
He stays at home, for he is ill. 
ii. Ik ben te laat, omdat ik mijn trein gemist 
heb. 
I am too late, because I missed my train. 
. i. Ze heefl een ongeluk veroorzaakt. 
She has caused an accident. 
ii. Hij bewoog zijn hand open neer. 
He moved his hand up and down. 
iii.Piet liet Marie een auto kopen. 
Piet had Marie buy a car. 
. Jij bent de oorzaak van al onze 
problemen. 
You are the cause of all our problems. 
4. i. Doorde gladde wegen is bijna niemand 
op tijd kunnen zijn. 
Because of the slippery roads hardly 
anybody could make it on time. 
ii. Ten gevolge van bet ongeluk ontstond 
een lange file. 
As a result of the accident there was a 
traffic j am. 
In traditional descriptive grammars, these 
different constructions are classified according to the 
grammatical category of the causal element, i.e. the 
linguistic element which endows the clause with a 
109 
* Kennebunkport, Maine • June 21-24, 1994 
causal meaning. Thus, in example (1) the causal 
element is realized by a coordinating or subordinating 
conjunction; example (2) displays different types of 
verbs with a causal meaning: causative verbs, 
intransitive verbs that are used transitively, causal 
auxiliaries. In example (3), the causal element is 
expressed in a nominal phrase and in example (4) in a 
prepositional phrase. All of these structures have a 
common underlying meaning (at least partially) 
which needs to be captured, namely causation, but 
which is not accounted for in these types of 
grammars, since semantics is described independently 
of the grammar. 
3. The semantics of causation 
The semantics underlying the different 
alternative constructions for expressing causation (be 
it in one language or cross-linguistically) have usually 
been described in general terms such as 'direct vs. 
indirect causation', 'strong coercion vs. weak 
coercion', 'facfitive vs. permissive causation', 
'manipulative vs. directive causation' etc. (see e.g. 
Cornrie 1974, 1985; Giv6n 1975; Talmy 1976; 
Skibatani 1976). In a perspective of mulfilingual 
generation, it is difficult to rely on these different 
"ready-made" labels to distinguish the different 
causative alternatives, because, as pointed out by 
Wierzbicka (1988), they do in fact not apply cross- 
linguistically to individual languages. What is called 
'direct causation' or 'strongly coercive' in one 
language is very often different from what is called 
'direct causation' or 'strongly coercive' in another. 
This does not mean that there are no similarities 
across languages in the area of causation. Wierzbicka 
shows that causative constructions can be described as 
unique combinations of semantic components and that 
it is therefore necessary to decompose the meaning of 
causative constructions into its semantic components. 
Not only is this necessary in order to distinguish the 
meaning of different causative constructions within 
one language, such as for example the following pair 
of English examples (Wierzbicka 1988:240): 
5. i. Hilary made Robin type the letter. 
ii. Hilary had Robin type the letter. 
But it is also necessary in order to predict, for 
exampl e , the difference in use of the English 'indirect' 
make causative and the French 'indirect' faire 
causative, as is shown in example (6) (Wierzbicka 
1988:244): 
. i. Le colonel a fait fondre (*a fondu) trois 
sucres dans son caf6. 
The colonel made dissolve (*dissolved) 
three lumps of sugar in his coffee. 
The colonel dissolved three lumps of 
sugar in his coffee. 
renre~entations should be theoretically motlvatea, along ut~ uu~ w,,t~^tu,, w,,,v,,,,,-,-, ....... • ....... 
7th International Generation Workshop • Kennebunkport, Maine ° June 21-24, 1994 
ii. Le m&allurgiste a fait fondre/a fondu le 
m6tal. 
The metallurgist made dissolve/melted 
the metal. 
The metallurgist melted the metal. 
This example illustrates that the analytic and lexical 
causative constructions do in fact not apply in the 
same context in English and French. Thus in order to 
use and generate these constructions correctly, i.e. to 
select the correct construction for a given context, "we 
have to identify the unique meaning of each 
construction, rather than try to rely on language- 
independent global labels such as 'direct' and 
'indirect'".(Wierzbicka 1988:244-245). In Section 4, I 
will try to provide such a fine description for the 
analytic causative constructions both in Dutch and in 
French. This detailed description should enable us to 
represent these constructions with enough delicacy in 
the system networks on the lexicogrammatical level of 
the grammar such as to account for the functional and 
structural convergences and divergences between both 
languages. But before elaborating on that point, we 
first have to determine to what extent all these 
constructions have a common underlying meaning. 
3.1. The causative situation 
In Section 2, we have seen that the 
phenomenon of causation can be expressed in natural 
language by a wide variety of linguistic coustructions. 
Following the non-arbitrary relation between 
semantics and lexicogrammar, I assume that each of 
these constructions has its own specific linguistic 
meaning, and that their use in language is determined 
by this meaning. But this does not mean that all these 
expressions are totally unrelated - on the contrary, 
they all express different aspects of a same (extra- 
linguistic) situation: the causative situation. 
Talmy (1976:52) defines a "basic causative 
situation" which "consists of a simple event (that is, 
one that would otherwise be considered autonomous), 
that which immediately causes the event, and the 
causal relation between the two." Shibatani (1976) 
also considers the causative situation to be a relation 
between two events: the causing event and the caused 
event. In addition, he characterizes this relation in 
terms of the speaker's belief that the caused event 
would not have taken place (at that particular time) ff 
the causing event had not taken place. This reference 
to the speaker's belief is, I think, very important, since 
it emphasizes that in talking about causation we are 
not referring to some notion of causality in the 
physical world, but rather to the human 
conceptualization of causation as it is, for instance, 
expressed in natural language (see also, Talmy 1976; 
Wierzbicka 1980; Kemmer and Verhagen, 
forthcoming). Building on these descriptions, I can 
now characterize a causative situation as a relation 
between two events that are viewed by the speaker as 
causally dependent on each other. This basic 
causative situation underlies all linguistic expressions 
of the phenomenon. 
In systemic terms, this basic causative situation is part 
of the (non-linguistic) context of situation, i.e. the 
general background composed of those features which 
are relevant to the speech that is taking place. 
Traditionally, SFL identifies three different aspects of 
context: field, tenor, and mode. Together they build 
"a conceptual framework for representing the social 
context as the semiotic environment in which people 
exchange meanings" (Halliday 1978:110). These 
three different aspects of context are interpreted 
linguistically on the semantic level and realized in a 
non-arbitrary way by the three metafunctions of the 
lexicogrammar: the ideational, interpersonal, and 
textual metafunctious (Halliday 1978:142-143; 
Matthiessen and Bateman 1991:68.-69). HaUiday sets 
the following correspondences between context and 
language: field tends to determine ideational 
meanings, tenor interpersonal ones, and mode textual 
ones. There is thus functional differentiation both in 
context and in the linguistic system. 
In the following we will see how these 
resources come into play in the linguistic realization 
of the causative situation, how this linguistic encoding 
has been accounted for in the Nigel grammar for 
generation so far, and how this treatment could be 
extended for multilingual generation. 
4. Realizing the causative situation 
Given our characterization of a causative 
situation as a causal relation (established by the 
speaker) between two (otherwise autonomous) events, 
it can be considered as belonging to the fieM 
component of the context. According to Halliday's 
proportionalities set out above, the most "congruent" 
(Halliday 1985:xix) or "solidary" (Martin 1991:116) 
linguistic encoding of this situation would thus lie in 
the ideational metafunction for the realization of both 
events with the resources for transitivity (process + 
participants + circumstances), and in the textual 
metafuncfion for the realization of the causal relation 
as a conjunction. These resources are for instance at 
play in: ,She didn't come because she was too tired. 
This is indeed how causation has been treated so far 
in the Nigel grammar. On clause complex level 
within the ideational metafunction, the grammar 
relies on the Upper Model 2 concept CALISAL-RELATION 
indicating that the two events expressed in the clause 
complex are to be encoded as causally dependent on 
each other, which is than expressed in the 
2 The Upper Model (Bateman, Kasper, 
Moore, Whitney 1990) is a general conceptual 
inheritance hierarchy developed within the PENMAN 
text generation project for organizing domain 
knowledge appropriately for linguistic realization. 
110 
7th International Generation Workshop • Kennebunkport, Maine ° June 21-24, 1994 
reason 
NONPHORIO-~ ~ behaffpurp°se 
CAUSE concess~n 
Figure 1: The causal con\]unction system 
on clause-complex rank 
lexicogrammar by means of a series of conjunctions in 
paradigmatic relation (see Figure 1). 
On clause rank, more specifically in the 
region transitivity, the Nigel Grammar also describes 
both the transitive and ergative pattern of processes, 
which account for the causative element in the 
structure of the English clause (Halliday, 1985:263). 
In Nigel, however, the link with causation is not 
made, neither are analytic causatives, or prepositional 
causative realizations covered. There is thus a gap in 
the grammar that needs to be filled along the 
paradigmatic (functional relation between the 
different realization alternatives) as well as along the 
syntagmatic (different structural realizations) axis. In 
the following sections, I will try to describe how this 
gap could be filled along both axes for the analytic 
causative construction in Dutch. From a theoretical 
point of view this involves that this particular 
realization alternative of the causative situation be 
investigated in detail so as to determine the semantic 
elements that constrain the lexicogrammadcal 
encoding. Thus, we have to establish what it means 
for a speaker to use this alternative over another: 
From a computational point of view, we should first 
be able to represent this structure on the 
lexicograrnmafical level and make sure that the 
resources for generating this construction are 
available in the system. And second, if we want the 
generation process to be under semantic control, we 
also have to establish how the semantic features 
triggering the different lexicogrammatical realizations 
can be represented. In addition, all these 
representations should be theoretically motivated. 
4.1. Analytic causatives: A case of grammatical 
metaphor 
The basic causative situation was 
characterized in Section 3 as a relation established by 
the speaker between two events in which one event, 
called the caused event, is causally dependent on the 
other event, called the causing event, l.f not all of 
these aspects need to be expressed, the most congruent 
lexicogrammatical realization, i.e. a clause complex 
in which causing event and caused event are both 
realized by a simple clause and linked by one of the 
111 
possible causal conjunctions (note that paradigmatic 
variation in the choice of the conjunction is still 
possible here), does not make sense. The 
lexicogrammar offers then other possibilities to 
express this underlying situation. In Systemic 
Functional Grammar (SFG), this expansion of the 
"meaning making potential of content form" (Martin 
1991:116) is accounted for in the theory of 
grammatical metaphor, which states that "for any 
given semantic configuration there is (at least) one 
congruent realization in the lexicogrammar. There 
may then be others that are in some respect 
transferred, or METAPHORICAL". (t-Ialliday 1985:321). 
In my view, one of these metaphorical 
expressions of causation is the analytic causative 
construction in which the two underlying events are 
condensed into one simple clause. An analytic 
causative can indeed be described as "a two-verb 
structure that expresses a predicate of causation and a 
predicate of effect" (Kemmer and Verhagen 
forthcoming), the causal predicate being termed in 
many languages 'auxiliary' or 'particle', indicating that 
it has no full verbal status. Thus, English expressions 
like I made him leave; ,ST~e had him type the letter; 
,She let him eat some brownies. This construction is 
used when a speaker views the underlying causing 
event as causally dependent on some action of the 
agent of the causing event, no matter what this action 
is. The causing event itself is thus not overtly 
specified, all that remains is the pure notion of cause 
expressed by a causal predicate (realized in most 
languages by a causal auxiliary or a causal 
morpheme). In the following, I will treat the analytic 
causative construction as an interpersonal 
interpretation of the causative situation that should 
thus be accounted for in the interpersonal 
metafunction of the lexicogrmmmar (see Section 4.2.). 
The implementation of the notion of 
grammatical metaphor presupposes that we be able to 
represent the (ext.-linguistic) context of situation, 
the (intra-linguistic) lexicogramrnatical potential of a 
given language (composed of the three metafunctions 
and the different structural ranks), and the (intra- 
linguistic) semantic interface between these two 
components. The context of situation can be viewed 
as a cluster of situation types that are categorized 
along the three contextual components of field, tenor, 
and mode. The influence that context may have on 
lexicogrammar and semantics is a topic of ongoing 
research (situation-specific semantics, see e.g. Cross 
1992, Caffarel 1992). The lexicogrammatical 
potential of a language comprises the three 
metafunctions and the different structural ranks. So 
far, the main linguistic resources are covered for 
English (Matthiessen 1990), German (Teich 1992), 
and Dutch (Degand 1993a) (Dutch being developed 
contrastively with English within the multilingual 
grammar (Degand 1993b)). The semantic interface 
between context and lexicogrammar provides us with 
the semantic constraints on the lexicogrammatical 
encoding. Following Matthiessen and Baternan 
(1991), I will assume that this semantic level is also 
(recta)functionally differentiated being composed of 
the ideation base, interaction base, and text base. 
Together they build the environment of the generation 
system. They represent a view on the context of 
situation from the lexicogrammar (see Matthiessen 
and Bateman 1991:200-230 for a more detailed 
account). In the following sections, I will try to 
determine what are the constraints set by this 
environment on the realization of analytic causatives 
in Dutch and how this can be represented in a 
multilingual system. 
4.2. Analytic causatives: an interpersonal 
interpretation 
Different authors have studied the semantics 
of analytic causatives in languages as diverse as 
English, Japanese, Korean, Bantu, Hungarian, 
Telugu, and many others (cf., e.g., Giv6n 1975, 1976; 
Shibatani 1976; Hetzron 1976; Rat and Bashir 1985; 
Wierzbicka 1988). From all of these analyses it 
appears that the agent of the underlying causing 
event, which we will label Causer (see below), is 
given a special status in the overall causative 
situation: that of (a certain degree of) control of the 
situation, and especially over the agent of the 
underlying caused event, labeled the Causee (see 
below). In other words, a speaker will use this type of 
construction only ff he/she believes that the Causee is 
under control of the Causer. If he/she does not 
believe this is so, a construction that is neutral to this 
respect (in the given language) will be selected. In 
SFG, the (social) status of the participants involved in 
a situation is traditionally accounted for in the 
interpersonal metafunction. This status seems to play 
a role in the selection of the analytic causative. This 
constitutes a first reason why I have chosen to 
represent this type of construction as an interpersonal 
metaphorical expression of the causative situation. 
A second reason concerns the conceptually 
dependent status of the causal predicate which 
accounts for the fact that it is conceptually empty, i.e. 
it is not (ideationally) classifiable as expressing one of 
the process types, and it has thus no proper 
participants. Or as Kemmer and Verhagen 
(forthcoming) state it: "In They made me leave, 
MAKE does not have any highly specific semantic 
content that could determine semantic roles (...) in 
relation to itself. In contrast, in the causing event in 
two-clause structures like They insulted me, so I left, 
the verb has its usual constellation of specific 
semantic roles (...), which occur independently of its 
use in an expression of cause-and-effect." However, 
tiffs does not mean that there are no participants 
involved in the causative event itself, i.e. the 
expression of the causative situation. In accordance 
with the terms used in the linguistic literature, I will 
label these core participants: Causer, Causee, and (if 
7th International Generation Workshop • Kennebunkport, Maine • June 21-24, 1994 
present) Affectee. The Causer is the participant 
viewed as bringing about the entire event; the Causee 
is the participant carrying out the activity designated 
by the effected predicate; and the Affectee, when 
expressed, is the participant "that is the endpoint of 
the energy (literal or metaphorical) expended in the 
entire causative event" (Kemmer and Verhagen, 
forthcoming). 
The causal predicate has thus no full Process 
status and it is not realized as that either. In Dutch, 
French, and English it is realized as an auxiliary that 
expands the meaning of the Process it occurs with, 
like the modal auxiliary expands the Process it occurs 
with too. Since the type of auxiliary selected is again 
highly dependent on interpersonal matters (see 
below), I believe this choice belongs to the 
interpersonal metafunction too. In other languages, 
e.g. Japanese, Hindi, Turkish, the causal predicate in 
these types of constructions is realized by a morpheme 
and not by an auxiliary. If the selection is in those 
cases also interpersonally relevant, the interpersonal 
metafunction would again be most appropriate to 
account for this realization. Diverging syntagmatic 
structures are then treated similarly from a functional 
point of view. 
But let us now look at the Dutch analytic 
causative constructions and see whether their 
meaning can be characterized along tile same lines. 
4.3. Analytic causatives in Dutch 
In Dutch the analytic causative construction 
can occur with two possible causal auxiliaries doen 
(cognate with 'to do') and laten (cognate with 'to let'), 
both taking an infinitival complement. According to 
our definition of analytic causatives given above the 
causal auxiliary corresponds to tile causal predicate 
and the infinitival complement to the effected 
predicate. This is illustrated in examples 8 and 9. 
. De wind doer de was drogen. 
The wind does the laundry dry. 
The wind dries the laundry. 
. Marie laat de was drogen. 
Mary lets the laundry dry. 
Mary lets the laundry dry. 
In these clauses the notion of causation lies 
exclusively in the causal predicate expressed by the 
causal auxiliaries doen and latch. The caused event is 
each time entirely expressed by the effected predicate 
(process + participants), while the causing event has 
been reduced to its sole Agent, realized as the Subject 
of the overall clause. The basic structure of the clause 
is that of simple clauses, and not of reduced (or 
derived) complex clauses (see Kernmer and Verhagen, 
forthcoming for cognitive evidence and Dik 1980 for 
grammatical evidence on this point). From a 
semantic point of view, the caused event is seen as 
112 
SITUATION 
7th iat~matlu.al u~.~L=t~u. V/u~k~hue - • ............ r ........... - .............. 
CAUSATION - causation 
+ cause REALIZATION 
congruent- I causation 
metaphorical- causation 
+ causer 
+ causee 
METAPHORICAL- 
CAUSATION- 
TYPE 
_ ideational-causation 
preselect ... 
_ interpersonal-causation 
preselect CAUSE causativization 
textual-causation 
preselect ... 
Figure 2: Partial causation network 
DIATHESIS 
CAUSATION- causaffvizafion "~ 
+ causal-aux DIRECTNESS cause/causal-aux 
direct- recipient- I causation \[-" causee 
lexi~ causal-aux marked- CAUSEE~._ I le~dfy causeemarker aan 
doen 7 causee f I- 
/ BOLE / indirect- 
CAUSEE- I+ causeemarKer L_ instrument- I causeemarker ^causee causee 
causation MARKING lexify L. unmarked 
causal-aux laten causee le~dfy causeemarker door 
causee / directobject 
Figure 3: Grammatical systems of interpersonal causation 
(causally) dependent on some action of the Subject of 
the clause (which always represents the Agent of the 
underlying causing event). Since two causal 
auxiliaries appear to be possible in this type of 
construction, the question to ask is "why would a 
speaker use one construction rather than the other, i.e. 
what is the difference in meaning?". The semantic 
distinction between both causal auxiliaries has been 
investigated from a cognitive point of view by 
Verhagen and Kemmer (1992). The core of their 
proposal is that "doen categorizes an event as 
involving direct causation, while laten categorizes the 
causal relation as indirect, i.e. as complex in the sense 
that some other force than the agent's is more 
immediately involved in bringing the effect about". 
(Verhagen and Kemmer 1992:1). There is thus a 
systematic difference between both causal auxiliaries 
and they are not interchangeable as is sometimes 
suggested in Dutch grammars. I will not elaborate on 
the theoretical aspects here, but I will suffice with the 
conclusions that can be drawn from this proposal and 
how they can be exploited for text generation (for an 
elaboration of these aspects see, Degand to appear). 
5. Generating analytic causatives in Dutch 
Building on the theoreticcal points givenll 3 
above, we can now represent these elements in system 
networks (Figures 2 and 3). The traversal of these 
systems, i.e. the selection of features, is guided by 
information from the environment obtained through 
the choosers and inquiries interface (see e.g. 
Mattthiessen 1988). The three bases each contribute to 
the elaboration of local plans for realizing complex 
clauses, simplex clauses, nominal groups, etc. 
Applying this to the realization of the causative 
situation, a local plan for a clause complex would 
result in the selection of the feature congruent- 
realization in the causation network (Figure 2), while 
metaphorical-causation corresponds to a local plan 
for a simplex clause. For analytic causatives the 
(simplex) clause plan would among other things also 
contain the following information. The ideation base 
provides us with information about participants 
(Causer and Causee), process, and circumstances: the 
interaction base specifies that there is a kind of 
'power' relation (a relation of control) between the 
participants involved in the situation; and the text 
base indicates that there is a causal relation between 
two events (causing event and caused event) of which 
only the caused event is informatively important. 
Given this information from the 
environment, the feature interpersonal-causation in 
the system METAPHOR.ICAL-CAUSATION-TYPE (Figure 
3), is selected, and the feature causativization from 
the DIATHESIS network is preselected. Diathesis refers 
7th International Generation Workshop • Kennebunkport, Maine • June 21-24, 1994 
to the way a language encodes the same situation in 
different perspectives (Figure 4 ). Structurally, there is 
coilflation of the Agent of the underlying causing 
event with the function Causer (which in a clause 
with active voice will be conflated on its turn with the 
Function Subject), while the Agent of the underlying 
caused event is conflated with the function Causee 
(very often realized as a Direct Object in active 
clauses). The network traversal proceeds then with 
the choice between direct-causation and indirect- 
causation. 'Indirect' causation means here that the 
action of the Causer is indeed viewed as the cause of 
the event expressed in the effected predicate, but that 
it is nevertheless a complex, i.e. indirect relation in 
the sense that another force is viewed as being more 
directly involved in the accomplishment of the effect 
than the action of the Causer himself. It is this 
indirect character of the causation that motivates the 
use of the causal auxiliary "laten" (cf. realization 
statement lexify causal-aux laten). The precise nature 
of this other force need not be specified. In example 
(9) Mary relies on some other force, the wind or the 
heat of a laundry drier, to have the laundry dried. All 
cases of (verbal) interaction between people are for 
the same reasons typically realized with laten. 'Direct' 
causation means in this context that the Causer is 
viewed as the immediate cause of the described effect. 
In other words, there is no intermediary force of 
which the presence or absence could prevent the 
occuring of the caused event. "Given the action of the 
agent, the result is inevitable, necessary. The causal 
relation is simple and direct." (Verhagen and 
Kemmer 1992:6). This is encoded in the grammar 
with the causal auxiliary "doen" (cf. realization 
statement lexify causal-aux doen). This direct 
causation is in the first place motivated in pure 
physical causal relations, as in example (8) given 
above. 
When indirect-causation has been selected 
from the system CAUSATION-DIRECTNESS and ff the 
Process of the caused event is effective, i.e. transitive, 
a further, in systemic terms more delicate, system is 
entered: CAUSEE-MARKING. In this system the case 
marking of the Causee is decided. In Dutch, there are 
three possible realizations as illustrated in examples 
10-12. 
10. Hij liet de briefaan iedereen lezen. 
He let the letter to everybody read 
He let/had everybody read the letter. 
11. Hij liet de brief door iemand lezen. 
He let the letter by somebody read 
He had the letter read by somebody. 
12. Hij liet haar de brief lezen. 
He let her the letter read 
He let/had/made her read the letter. 
With aan (example (10)) the Causee is categorized as 
114 
a Recipient who is fairly autonomous and is involved 
in the causative event because he wants to. The 
reading is rather permissive: 'He allowed everybody 
(who wanted it) to read the letter (for its content)'. 
With door (example (11)) the Causee is viewed as a 
sort of instrument; the reading is more causative: 'He 
asked somebody to read the letter not for its content 
(the Cansee is not the recipient of the message) but 
e.g. to check the spelling, or to read it loud for an 
audience.' In example (12) the Causee appears as a 
bare nominal phrase without any case marking. Here 
the Causee is viewed as an object of the action of the 
Causer with few autonomy: (12) could for instance 
mean: 'The reader was not inclined to read the letter 
(for its conten0 and the Causer had to insist or even 
had to force her a little bit'. In causative constructions 
with doen the Cansee is never marked with a 
prepositional case. This can be explained 
straightforwardly in the sense that direct causation 
does not leave any autonomous role on behalf of the 
Causee in realizing the causative event. 
All these different features can now be 
represented in the interpersonal system network of the 
lexicogrammar where they function as grammatical 
output features of the selection systems. This is 
partially depicted in Figure 4. 
6. Conclusions 
The starting point of my investigation has 
been the observation that all natural languages offer a 
multitude of alternatives to express causation. Any 
language user or natural language generation system 
is thus confronted with a crucial problem of choice. 
In this article I have adopted a semiotic approach to 
causation assuming that all the possible causative 
constructions have their specific meaning and that the 
selection of one alternative over another is thus not 
arbitrary. More specifically, I have concentrated on 
the semantics and the functional (paradigmatic) 
treatment of analytic causatives in Dutch. It was 
shown that a specific semantic feature of analytic 
causatives seems to be in many languages the notion 
of interaction (manipulation, control) between the 
Causer and the Causee. This aspect can be accounted 
for in systemic functional grammar in the 
interpersonal metafunction where these constructions 
are then handled as metaphoric realizations of the 
basic causative situation. 
Future work in this area includes the 
investigation of the specific meanings of all other 
Dutch linguistic expressions of causation in order to 
establish explicitly in how far these different 
linguistic realizations of a common causative situation 
differ semantically from each other, and how these 
semantic features can constrain the selection of the " 
most appropriate expression in the given context". 
This orients us towards a more situation-based 
approach of generation. 
7th International Generation Workshop * Kennebunkport, Maine * June 21-24, 1994 

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