Detail #288: Causatives (and Alignment Stuff)

In a language with a case system, one could imagine a very simple way of forming causatives:

NOUN₁-NOM NOUN₂-NOM (NOUN_3...N-OTHER_CASES) VERB

 NOUN₁ would be the causer, NOUN₂ the causee.

This might seem a bit simplistic, but let's go on to consider similarities between causee and recipient - viz. they are both in the state they are in (modulo mood and aspect and polarity, and the states being either 'being in possession of', or 'doing'), due to the actions of a causee/giver.

person₁ person₂ thing take
= person₁ makes person₂ take thing
≈ person₁ gives person₂ thing

Suddenly, we could have give originate with take, and the indirect object and the subject marked with the same case. A more English-like give, without such odd an etymology, however, doesn't necessarily prevent this: the role distribution around give seems to me to be one that easily could shift. I am not sure 'give' is necessarily a driving force behind syntactical change - I am inclined to believe that 'give' more often has an exceptional pattern for marking the recipient than any other verb, if I were pressed to have an opinion, but also that other verbs are less likely to follow suit and become like give, than they are to force give back into line.

With such a shift, however, we would reach one of the odder alignment types, especially if the nominatives otherwise act similarly - i.e. both are subjects in some way. Maybe plural congruence is always triggered when both a subject and indirect object is present, because clearly there's more than a singular subject.

Maybe congruence is just off in some odd way, or who knows what really.