@article {3092222,
	title = {Modelling linguistic causation},
	year = {Submitted},
	abstract = {This paper introduces a systematic way of analyzing the semantics of causative linguistic expressions,\&nbsp;and of how causal relations are expressed in natural languages. The starting point for this\&nbsp;broad agenda is to provide an explanation for the asymmetrical inferential relationship between\&nbsp;two causative constructions: change-of-state (CoS) verbs and the verb cause, commonly ascribed\&nbsp;to the former having an additional prerequisite of direct causation. The direct causation hypothesis,\&nbsp;however, is fraught with empirical and theoretical challenges. At the theoretical level, capturing\&nbsp;the felicity conditions specific to CoS verbs and the notion of direct causation requires a means\&nbsp;of modelling complex causal\&nbsp;structures. This is on no account a trivial task, as it necessitates, inter alia, modelling causation in a way that is germane to the linguistic expressions designating\&nbsp;such relations. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to develop a framework for modelling\&nbsp;the\&nbsp; semantics of causal statements. For this purpose, this paper makes use of the framework<br>of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), and it demonstrates how this approach provides tools\&nbsp;for a rigorous model-theoretic treatment of the differential semantics of causal\&nbsp; expressions. This\&nbsp;paper introduces formal logical definitions of different types of conditions\&nbsp; using SEM networks,\&nbsp;and show how this proposal and the formal tools it employs allow us to make sense of the asymmetric\&nbsp;entailment relationship between the two constructions. In our proposal, CoS verbs do not\&nbsp;require contiguity between cause and effect at all, but instead they require that its subject is set\&nbsp;by default to a participant in completion event, the event which {\textquotedblleft}completes{\textquotedblright} a sufficient set of\&nbsp;conditions, such that following this event (but not before) the values of the set of conditions in the\&nbsp;sufficient set entail that the effect occurs. According to this, the intuition of direct causation arises\&nbsp;(epiphenomenally) from contrasting CoS verbs with overt cause sentences: the stronger selection\&nbsp;pattern of the former - which requires a completion event - may exclude more temporally distant\&nbsp;conditions, while the latter admits any necessary condition.\&nbsp;},
	author = {Bar-Asher Siegal EA. and Baglini R.}
}
