Kausativy

Kausativy, or causatives, are linguistic constructions that express a causal relation between an agent and an event, resulting in someone or something being caused to perform an action or undergo a change of state. They help distinguish who causes an action from who experiences it and can affect the transitivity, voice, and argument structure of a clause.

Causativity appears in several forms. Lexical causatives are built into the main verb itself, as in make, cause, or force, where the verb inherently encodes the causer’s influence. Periphrastic causatives use auxiliary or multi-verb constructions, such as “make someone do something” or “have someone do something.” Morphological causatives derive a new causative verb from a base verb with affixes, infixes, or reduplication in various languages. Some languages combine these strategies, and others rely on context, mood, or adverbs to signal causation.

Syntactically, causatives introduce or shift a causer (the agent who brings about the event) and a patient or theme (the participant who undergoes the change). They can alter transitivity and voice, and in many languages, an additional dependent clause or infinitival clause marks the ensuing action. A related phenomenon is the causative alternation, where certain verbs can appear in both transitive (causative) and intransitive (inchoative) forms, changing which participant functions as causer or patient.

Cross-linguistically, the expression of causativity varies widely. Some languages rely on dedicated affixes or verbs, others on syntactic constructions, and still others on semantic nuances or discourse context to convey who causes what to happen.