A Pragmatic Analysis Of Causative Verbs

There have been many researches done on causative verbs, among which mainly are semantic and syntactic analyses, but there are seldom pragmatic analyses of causative verbs. According to Jenny Thomas, pragmatics is the "meaning in interaction" (Thomas, 1995:22). In our daily interaction, what make us say something and not say something consists of a rather complex question, so is the use of causative verbs. So it is meaningful and interesting to analyze causative verbs from the aspect of pragmatics.Some important theories, such as speech acts theory, indirectness and politeness principles, in pragmatics are employed in this dissertation in order to give out a relatively detailed pragmatic analysis of causative verbs, thus we can use causative verbs correctly in our daily communication. Besides theories, there are also many vivid examples cited in this paper to support the theories.With regard to the pragmatic analysis of causative verbs, we find that causative verbs can be used to form performatives; there are conditions for successfully performing a speech act by using a causative verb; the theory of indirectness and politeness can also be used to explain why people seldom use causative verbs. Hopefully, this paper can provide a new angle of view for the research of causative verbs, and people can use causative verbs correctly in conversations.