Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization

The study of the causal-noncausal alternation offers a unique window onto how languages represent causal relations and event structure. Among the strategies used to encode this alternation, anticausative markers, which overtly signal noncausal situations, have received considerably less attention than causative markers, particularly from a typological and a diachronic perspective. This volume addresses this gap by bringing together fourteen original studies that span a wide range of language families and geographical areas, while drawing on diverse methods and data sources. The chapters explore how anticausatives are realized across languages, how they interact with competing strategies such as lability and causativization, and how they are historically connected to other voice operations such as reflexives and passives. Several contributions also examine the origins and grammaticalization of anticausative markers, identifying previously overlooked diachronic sources and challenging the widespread view that anticausatives derive primarily from reflexive constructions.