ABSTRACT
It is well-known that in some languages causative and passive constructions share the same verbal morphology. For example, Nedjalkov and Sil’nickij (1969:38) include passive among the range of functions which may be performed by causative morphology cross-linguistically; and Shibatani (1985:840) describes the causative-passive correlation as ‘familiar’.1 An example of this link is found in English, where constructions such as Peter had a book stolen allow both causative and passive readings. In this paper, I shall try to show that certain fairly common uses of causative morphology share crucial properties in common with passives, and that it is possible to reconstruct a plausible diachronic development linking the two types of construction.2 I shall then discuss a particular example of the correlation from the Tungusic language Evenki.
