Processes unfold, participants exist, and space situates them. But how change occurs — who acts, who influences, and how responsibility is distributed — is patterned differently across languages. Relational ontology reminds us: causation is not “out there” to be labelled; it is cut into experience by construal.
1. Ergativity vs. accusativity
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Dyirbal and Basque: ergative systems highlight the participant undergoing change over the agent.
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Agency is backgrounded, especially when the action is intransitive or relational.
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Syntax enforces a perspective where the event or its patient is central.
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English: accusative system foregrounds the agent; causality is linear, and the “doer” is default.
Typological insight: Languages differ in whether force and responsibility are anchored in the agent or in the event itself.
2. Causative strategies
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Turkish: morphological causatives embed control or intentional influence in the verb.
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Su kaynadı (“the water boiled”) vs. Su kaynattı (“someone caused the water to boil”).
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Japanese: analytic causatives often mark indirect influence: Tarō-ga Hanako-ni benkyō-saseru (“Tarō makes Hanako study”), foregrounding relational mediation.
Typological insight: Morphological vs. analytic causatives pattern how agency is distributed, direct or indirect, in relation to the process.
3. Evidentiality and agency modulation
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Tibetan and Quechua integrate evidential markers with agency.
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The speaker signals whether the causal chain is observed, inferred, or reported.
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Responsibility and perception are relationally encoded.
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Typological insight: Agency and causation are epistemically constrained; language marks not just who acts, but how the speaker accesses and interprets the action.
4. Cross-linguistic comparison: key contrasts
| Feature | English | Dyirbal/Basque | Turkish | Japanese | Tibetan/Quechua |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent prominence | High | Low | Medium | Medium | Relational/epistemic |
| Causative encoding | Analytic | Minimal | Morphological | Analytic | Morphosyntactic + evidential |
| Event-centred vs agent-centred | Agent-centred | Event-centred | Mixed | Mixed | Event & epistemic focus |
| Responsibility foregrounded | Explicit | Implicit | Explicit/relational | Relational | Medially encoded |
5. Cognitive and narrative consequences
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English speakers: narratives emphasise doers, villains, heroes, and linear causal chains.
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Dyirbal/Basque speakers: narratives highlight events and their relational consequences; agents may be backgrounded.
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Turkish/Japanese speakers: narratives modulate intentionality and influence, foregrounding degrees of control.
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Tibetan/Quechua speakers: narratives integrate epistemic stance and evidential access, creating multi-layered causal worlds.
Cognition: The habitual construal of agency shapes attention, attribution, moral reasoning, and narrative expectation.
6. Concluding reflection
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Agent-centred worlds
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Event-centred worlds
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Relationally distributed worlds
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Epistemically mediated worlds
These patterns shape not just what events occur, but how they can be experienced, interpreted, and narrated.
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