Variation in analytic causative constructions: a view on German and Romance

Abstract In this paper, we compare the German analytic causative construction to its Romance counterpart, focusing on three main differences: word order, case assignment, and the presence/absence of the obligation effect. We argue that all three differences can be related to a phrase structural difference, namely the type of projection heading the infinitival complement. We provide evidence that while the causative predicate embeds a VoiceP in German, Romance fare/faire combines with an ApplP. This difference is argued to lead to VP-movement in Romance, accounting for the word order difference... Mehr ...