@article{ref1,
title="Direct causation in the linguistic coding and individuation of causal events",
journal="Cognition",
year="2003",
author="Wolff, Phillip",
volume="88",
number="1",
pages="1-48",
abstract="This research proposes a new theory of direct causation and examines how this concept plays a key role in the linguistic coding and individuation of causal events. According to the no-intervening-cause hypothesis, a causal chain can be described by a single-clause sentence and construed as a single event if there are no intervening causers between the initial causer and the final causee. Consistent with this hypothesis, participants used single-clause sentences (lexical causatives) more often than two-clause sentences (e.g. periphrastic causatives) for causal chains in which (1) the causer and causee touched (Experiments 1 and 2), and (2) an intervening entity could be construed as an enabling condition rather than another cause (Experiments 2-4). In addition, event judgments paralleled linguistic descriptions: chains that could be described with single-clause expressions were more often construed as single events than chains that could not (Experiments 1-3). Implications for languages other than English, for the linguistic coding of accidental outcomes and for the relationship between cognition and language in general are discussed.  (term-accident-vs-injury)<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0010-0277",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}