Il Corpus parallelo italiano-russo per lo studio del causativo in chiave contrastiva

In this paper I will show how a parallel corpus can be used to compare Rus- sian and Italian causative constructions. While the first is mainly lexical, causation in Italian is almost exclusively expressed through the construction ‘make + infinitive’. This corpus-based analysis will show, on the one hand, how Italian causative often loses its primary function and, on the other, how Russian, that does not always mark the op- position between direct and indirect causation, could be ambiguous when expressing the actants of a given causative situation. This confirms, once again, the predominantly synthetic nature of Russian compared to Italian.