Page "Causative" Paragraph 11

Presenting a typology of causatives and causation based on a database of 600 languages, Song ( 1996 ) is very critical of typological work that depends on statistical inference, citing data from the Niger-Congo family that contradicts some earlier claims that “ languages within genera are generally fairly similar typologically ”.

( Dryer 1989: 267 )( 19 ) Song therefore culls data from every language for which adequate documentation is available to him, and categorizes the various causative constructions gleaned therefrom into three classes: COMPACT, AND and PURP.