Based on the caused eventuality, causation can be subdivided into causation of an activity and causation of change of state. By analyzing how causatives are expressed in European Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese, this study shows that these two languages exhibit quite a lot of differences in expressing causation of change of state. We have observed that quite many Portuguese verbs which intrinsically involve causative meanings do not have Chinese equivalence in simplex verb forms – their Chinese counterparts often take complex forms, including a construction we call “Causative Resultative V-Vs” (CR V-Vs). Difference is also found in the derivation direction: whereas anticausation plays a big role in Portuguese, causation is the main process in Chinese. We attribute the contrast to different expressing powers of verb roots in the two languages: while Portuguese verb roots are able to express complex meanings, Chinese roots mostly denote either a pure activity or a pure state/result.

中文翻译：

---

论成因——欧洲葡萄牙语和普通话的比较

根据引起的不测性，因果关系可以细分为活动的因果关系和状态变化的因果关系。本研究通过分析欧洲葡萄牙语和汉语普通话的使役表达方式，发现这两种语言在表达状态变化的因果关系上表现出相当大的差异。我们观察到，相当多的葡萄牙语动词本质上包含使役意义，在单纯动词形式中没有中文对等——它们的中文对应物通常采用复杂形式，包括我们称之为“使役结果 V-Vs”（CR V-Vs）的结构。在推导方向上也发现了差异：反因果关系在葡萄牙语中起着重要作用，而因果关系在汉语中是主要过程。我们将这种对比归因于两种语言中动词词根的不同表达能力：