Table Of ContentJerusalem Studies in Philosophy and History of Science
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal
Nora Boneh Editors
Perspectives on
Causation
Selected Papers from the Jerusalem
2017 Workshop
Jerusalem Studies in Philosophy and History
of Science
SeriesEditors
OrlyShenker,TheHebrewUniversityofJerusalem,TheSidneyM.Edelstein
CenterfortheHistoryandPhilosophyofScience,TechnologyandMedicine
NoraBoneh,TheHebrewUniversityofJerusalem,Language,Logic
andCognitionCenter,ThelinguisticsDepartment
JerusalemStudiesinPhilosophyandHistoryofSciencesetsouttopresentstateof
theartresearchinavarietyofthematicissuesrelatedtothefieldsofPhilosophyof
Science, History of Science, and Philosophy of Language and Linguistics in their
relationtoscience,stemmingfromresearchactivitiesinIsraelandthenearregion
and especially the fruits of collaborations between Israeli, regional and visiting
scholars.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/16087
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal • Nora Boneh
Editors
Perspectives on Causation
Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 2017
Workshop
Editors
ElitzurA.Bar-AsherSiegal NoraBoneh
Language,LogicandCognitionCenter, Language,LogicandCognitionCenter,
TheDepartmentofHebrewLanguage TheLinguisticsDepartment
HebrewUniversityofJerusalem HebrewUniversityofJerusalem
Jerusalem,Israel Jerusalem,Israel
ISSN2524-4248 ISSN2524-4256 (electronic)
JerusalemStudiesinPhilosophyandHistoryofScience
ISBN978-3-030-34307-1 ISBN978-3-030-34308-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34308-8
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Preface
Causation stands at the heart of all sciences, and as such, philosophers, linguists,
andcognitivescientistsseektounderstandtheexactnatureofthisconceptandhow
causalstructuresarerepresentedinthehumancognitivesystems.
The philosophical models have been a central motor and a constant point of
reference in how thought and to some extent methodology in other disciplines
have been shaped. For example, linguists often borrow philosophers’ analyses
of causation and assume that the relevant linguistic expressions denote such
concepts.Similarly,psychologistsandcognitivescientistsputtothetestmodelsof
causation in investigating central cognitive competencies such as causal learning
and reasoning. The connections between the disciplines, however, are definitely
not unidirectional. Philosophers, for example, occasionally seek insights from the
linguistic literature in understanding what yields certain interpretations of causal
statements.Similarly,othertypesofinteractionscanbesought:cognitivepsycholo-
gistsmaybenefitfrombeinginformedbylinguisticanalysesintheirexplorationsof
specific human behavior involving language. And of course, linguists may benefit
fromcognitiveinvestigationsthatcanbebroughttobearonquestionspertainingto
domaingeneralityoflanguage,takingcausationanditslinguisticencodingtobea
studycase.
These broad considerations served as the framework for an interdisciplinary
encounter held in June 2017 at the Language, Logic and Cognition Center at the
HebrewUniversityofJerusalem,wherescholarsfromthethreedisciplinesattended
theworkshopLinguisticPerspectivesonCausation.Thisworkshopaimedtobring
together cognitive psychologists, linguists, and philosophers in order to explore
furtherhowthedifferentdisciplinescanbebeneficialandinstructivetooneanother.
Theselectionofpapersgroupedinthisvolumestemsfromthetalkspresentedat
thatworkshop,representingawiderangeofanglesonthestudyofcausationinthe
three abovementioned disciplines. To reflect this, the papers are organized in five
parts. In what follows, we present the structure of the book, briefly describing the
papersconstitutingit.
Part one, titled Perspectives on Causation, concentrates on points of junction
between philosophical and linguistic studies on causation. It consists of papers by
v
vi Preface
Bar-Asher Siegal & Boneh and by Hitchcock. The adoption of central concepts
from classic philosophical accounts to causal relations by linguists stands at the
heartofBar-AsherSiegal&Boneh’spaper.Thispaperscrutinizestowhatextent
thephilosophicalconceptsareapplicableforlinguisticanalysesofvariouscausative
constructions. In turn, it also critically evaluates cases in which philosophical
discussionsseekinsightsfromjudgmentsthatareprimarilylinguisticwhendealing
with the metaphysics of causation. In its panoramic perspective on causation and
causative constructions, and with its consideration of the meeting points between
disciplines,thisfirstchaptercanalsobereadasanintroductiontothevolume,since
itlocatestheotherpapersofthisbookinthediscussionsitsurveys.
Hitchcock’spaperpointstothediscrepancybetweenwhatlookslikethebinary
representationofcausationinlanguageandthewaycausalrelationsaremodelledin
theframeworkofthestructuralequationmodel,wheresuchrelationsaresensitiveto
multiplevariables.Heaskshowwesuccessfullycommunicateaboutcausalrelations
giventhisdiscrepancy.
The papers of the second part, grouped under the title Methodology: Uncov-
ering the Representation of Causation, propose novel methodologies for study-
ing representations of causation. Bellingham, Evers, Kawachi, Mitchell, Park,
Stepanova & Bohnemeyer’s paper presents preliminary findings of the project
CausalityAcrossLanguages.Whereas,usually,linguisticstudiespresupposesome
implicit semantic criterion to what should be included under the category of
“causativeconstructions,”thisstudyproposestobeginfromasystematicobserva-
tionofhowspeakersofdifferentcommunitiescommunicateaboutvariouscognitive
concepts.Itproposesseveralmethodologiesforexploringproduction,comprehen-
sion,andconceptualizationofcausationacrossasampleoflanguages.Theirstudies
payparticularattentiontoculturalinfluencesandcrosslinguisticdifferences,when
subjects are presented with various visual scenarios, and judge what they have
been shown. The preliminary results are relevant for inquiries interested in causal
pluralism,subcategoriesofcausation(e.g.,physicalvs.abstract),andcrosslinguistic
differences between causative constructions and issues pertaining to lexicalization
vs.pragmaticenrichmentinthelinguisticrepresentationofcausation.
In turn, the paper by Hagmayer & Engelmann traces the way people ask
questions in order to get or give explanations. The goal of their experiments is to
gaininsightsintothevalidityoftwogroupsofcognitive-psychologicaltheoriesof
causalexplanations,dependency-relatedandmechanistic,theassumptionbeingthat
the different theories require different types of knowledge for causal explanation.
This paper provides a good overview of current cognitive-psychological theories
forhowpeopleexplainfacts,anditsoriginalityliesinthemethodology:theauthors
allowparticipantstoaskunguidedquestionsseekingexplanations,whichareinturn
theobjectofaquantitativeanalysis,unlikethestandardmethodologyofpresenting
subjectswithinformationandthenaskingthemtojudgeorevaluate.
Thenexttwopartsofthebookarededicated tolinguisticanalysesofcausative
constructions.ThepapersinpartthreerevolvearoundthetopicofMeaningCom-
ponentsofCausation.Eachofthefourpapersinittacklesphenomenapertainingto
centralinquiriesinlexicalsemanticsandinsodoingdealwithavarietyofessential
Preface vii
questions in the literature, among them, event causation, direct causation, internal
causation, zero-change and defeasible causation, and the agent/causer distinction.
ThepaperbyCroft&Vigusiscouchedinaforcedynamicsframework.Itextends
the first author’s seminal theory of argument realization, where causation serves
as an organizational factor in lexical semantics, to cases in which one finds event
nominalsinsteadofindividualparticipantsasargumentsofthepredicate.Basedon
acrosslinguisticinvestigation,thispaperarguesthateventnominalscorrespondto
participant sub-events, which are in turn realized according to the same rules as
participantsinthecausalchain.
Levin’s paper provides support for the prototypical conception of direct causa-
tionintheliteraturebyexaminingresultativepredicatesintransitiveconstructions,
bothwhenthedirectobjectNPisselectedbythemainverbandincaseswhereitis
not.Itshowsthatthenotionofdirectcausation,intermsofabsenceofintervening
participantthatappliesinthecaseofsimplexcausativeverbs,alsoholdshere.The
constructions are of interest since they represent concealed causatives, and at the
same time, they behave similarly to sentences with lexical causative verbs, with
respecttodirectcausation.Thisobservationraisesafundamentalquestionregarding
causativeconstructions:whatisthesourceofthecausativecomponentinthem?–a
questionthatcanbeofinteresttoscholarsoutsideoflinguisticsaswell.
Next,RappaportHovav’spaperunderminesthelinguisticvalidityofthewidely
accepted division between internally and externally caused change of state verbs.
This division relies on the assumption that the so-called internally caused verbs
appear as intransitives only – lacking an external cause. The author demonstrates
that what has been accepted in the literature as rigid generalizations is, in fact,
merelyatendency.She,consequently,claimsthatitdoesnotreflectanygrammatical
propertyofchangeofstateverbs.Instead,thedataproposevariousgeneralprinci-
ples that govern lexical causatives and the (non)appearance of cause arguments,
whichshapethistendency.
In the last paper of this part, Martin elucidates, on the basis of experimental
studies in Mandarin, French, and English, the crosslinguistic tendency for zero-
change use of causative predicates to occur with an agentive subject contrary to a
causesubject,oranintransitiveverb,wherezero-changedoesnotarise.Itproposes
twotypesofargumentsintroducingheadsandconsidersindetailhowtheycombine
withtheVPsinlanguageswithweakperfectivesandincaseswheretheverbhasa
sub-lexicalmodalcomponent,yieldingdefeasiblecausatives.Thispaperintroduces
different ways in which causal relations are represented in the syntax and how it
affectsthesemanticsofsuchconstructions.
The last point regarding Martin’s paper can also serve to introduce the fourth
partofthebook,titledSyntacticandSemanticAspectsofCausation,asthefirst
two papers by Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou and Ahdout, as well as Doron’s,
deal with the distinction between agent and causer and its adequate linguistic
representation.Allpapersinthispartarguethat,atleastatthesyntacticlevel,causal
relationsarerepresentedinmorethanoneway.
Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou discuss the syntactic properties of subjects of
a subclass of psychological predicates (e.g., interest) and claim that there is a
viii Preface
syntactic distinction between the types of causers they license: agents introduced
by Voice and causers introduced in the specifier position of vP, assimilating the
latter to internally caused causative verbs. Contrary to Martin’s semantic account
that distinguishes agent from causers, Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou claim that
causersformonesyntacticdomainwiththeresultstateconstituent,whereasagents
do not. This difference in structure, according to them, also explains the patterns
observed with defeasible causatives with coerced psychological predicates. Their
accountalsoadvocatesinfavorofsyntacticindistinctnessinencodingcausationin
thephysicalandpsychologicaldomains.
Ahdout in turn describes a phenomenon known as agent exclusivity effect in
nominalizationsofcausativeverbs.Ithasbeenshown,mainlyonthebasisofdata
drawn from English, that agents in this syntactic environment are licit, whereas
causes are not. Previous work has provided syntactic analyses to account for this
effect, claiming that agent and cause are attached in constructions of different
sizes and therefore can or cannot fit in nominalizations. Other accounts sought
the difference in the type of Voice head available. On the basis of new data from
Hebrew, Ahdout shows that like in Greek, Romanian, and German, the agent
exclusivity effect can be overridden with cause-PPs, therefore casting doubt on
previousanalyses.Thispaper,likethetwopreviousones,makesclearthatatsome
level of representation, agents and causes are different. An interesting question
raised here is whether causation can be taken to be a meaning primitive or rather
isreadoffthestructurepost-syntactically.
Next, Nash’s paper is concerned with the syntactic and lexical semantic prop-
erties of embedded causees in Georgian. Her central claim is that in neither of
the constructions, the causee is realized as an agent, even if it is an agent in the
simple, unembedded, verb. The paper surveys ways in which the agent argument
is “demoted” when it surfaces as the causee in these causative constructions.
In particular, the paper unveils subtle differences between types of causativized
transitive verbs and provides a novel discussion of causativized unergatives. The
investigationofthesyntacticandlexicalsemanticpropertiesoftheseconstructions
proposes a take on the issue of direct vs. indirect causation by analyzing the
structuralandsemanticpropertiesofanintervening eventparticipant,between the
causerandtheeffect.Interestingly,inrelationtothemaindiscussionintheprevious
threepapers,Georgian,atleast,doesnotdistinguishbetweenagentsandcausersat
thestructurallevel.
Returning to psychological predicates, Doron distinguishes between two sub-
classesofverbs,realizingdifferentlythecausercomponent,takentobeanargument,
rather than a relational element. One subclass consists in a two-place relation
between the experiencer argument and the T/SM argument, where the cause
brings about the relation; the other subclass is a one-place property predicate, the
experiencerargumentbeingthesubject.Inthisanalysis,thecauseargumentvaries
initsinterpretationaccordingtoitsbroaderenvironment.Thepapergoesontoshow
thatthesetwosubclassesarenotparticularorspecialtothepsychologicaldomain;
rather,theypatternlikestativephysicalpredicates.
Preface ix
Lastly,Charnaveldepartsfromtheotherauthorsinthispartinfocusingonthe
connectives because and since rather than on the lexical properties of verbs. She
proposesthattheseconnectivesconstituteattitudecontextsintroducingajudgefrom
whose perspective the causal relation between the content of the main clause and
that of the adjunct clause is evaluated. The paper argues that the causal judge is
syntacticallypresent.Itisshown,onthebasisofdatacollectedinexperiments,that
the causal judge is introduced as an argument of the connective and is identified
through exhaustive binding by the closest relevant attitude holder in the sentence,
which is either the speaker alone or the speaker together with a relevant animate
event participant. This depends on the site of adjunction of the because and since
phrase,allowinginthefirstcase,butnotinthesecond,ananimateeventparticipant
tobetheattitudeholdercontrollingthejudge.
The closing fifth part contains two papers concerned with Philosophical
InquiriesonCausationbyStathamandKment.Statham’spapersurveysrecent
advances in philosophical thinking about causation and causal reasoning, paying
particular attention to those models construing causation reasoning as deviation
fromthenorm.SimilarlytoHitchcock,thispaperalsoconsidersandevaluatesthe
structural equation model as a powerful system for representing causal systems.
Considering causal relations through deviation from the norms leads the author
to break from the tradition that bases the metaphysics of causation on insights
fromthephysicalandnaturalworldoflaws,independentofhumanconcerns.One
consequence of this is the enrichment of the traditional classification of types of
clausal claims customarily distinguishing type and token claims and taking only
tokens to be deviant, whereas types are always normal. The novel proposal in the
paperisthatthesecategoriesofclaimsareorthogonal,andtherefore,onecanalso
encounterdevianttypes.Thepaperinvitesfurtherinvestigationofthequestionhow
thetypologicalabundanceofcausalrelationsmadeavailablebytherecentmodels
can inform linguistic research and more generally the issue of sub-types of causal
locutions.
Kment’s paper criticizes the standard view, attributed to Lewis, according to
which, causal relationships are defined by counterfactual dependency. Instead, he
argues that counterfactual dependence provides evidence for causal connections
but does not constitute them. That is, counterfactual reasoning is only useful for
establishingcausalclaims,andnaturallawsandpasthistoryareneededtoestablish
anewclaimaboutrelationshipsof(actualtoken)causation.Thispaperisinlinewith
the literature in philosophy and in linguistics, according to which, counterfactual
statementsareaccountedforbycausalrelations,sincepriorknowledgeisrequired
forestablishingsuchclaims.Inthissense,itelucidatesthatoneisnotreducibleto
theother.
Whilethisprefaceprovidesonewayofgroupingthepapersthematically,various
otherwayscouldbethoughtof,accordingtoseveralrecurrenttopicsthroughoutthis
book,regardlessofthedisciplineofeachchapter.Wewillbrieflymentionsome,so
astoproposeideasforotherpossibleinquiresacrossdisciplines.
Many discussions in this volume can be read with the fundamental question in
mindofwhetherandhowcausalitycanbereducedtoothernoncausalterms(Croft
