'State-maintaining' causatives: A close kin to resultatives

•'State-maintaining' causatives, as distinct from resultatives, need to be recognized.•Some apparent resultatives should be analyzed as instances of 'state-maintaining' causatives.•A new light is shed on what from means in keep - from (e.g. Harry kept Joe from moving out of the bathroom).

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that expressions like hold - open (e.g. I held the door open), tape - shut (e.g. He taped the door shut), and lock - in the bathroom (e.g. Harry locked Joe in the bathroom), which look like resultatives, are actually not resultatives, and that these expressions can be accommodated as instances of 'state-maintaining' causatives in a theory building upon Talmy's (2000) force dynamics. Furthermore, the proposed analysis gives us an insight into how the expression keep - from (e.g. Harry kept Joe from moving out of the bathroom) is motivated.