Transitives, causatives and passives in Korean and Japanese

Transitives, causatives, and passives, all of which take the form “np1-nom + np2-acc/dat/by + v …”, are major construction types, but their identities or differences have been unclear. Thus, in this paper, I pursue a unified account for those structure patterns, in terms of ‘event-control’ (EC) over the root event (RE) and the argument-status of np2 in the RE. I argue that: (i) a transitive is a subject (np1) EC construction, and np2 is the internal argument of the RE; (ii) a causative is a construction of shared EC, and np2 is the external argument of the RE; (iii) a passive is a non-subject (np2) EC construction, and np2 is the external argument of the RE. Keywords: transitive; causative; passive; event-control; root event