causativetransitive

Causativetransitive is a linguistic term used to describe verbs or verb constructions that encode causation and are transitive, meaning they take a direct object (the patient) who is affected by the action. In many languages, causation can be expressed either by derivational morphology attached to the verb or by periphrastic constructions, and the resulting form is transitive.

Causative transitivity can be formed in several ways. A lexical causative uses a separate causative verb with an overt object, as in a sentence like The coach had the players practice every day, where had functions as a causative and practice forms part of an infinitival clause. Grammatical or morpho-syntactic causatives rely on affixes or other structural patterns to derive a new transitive verb from a base verb. The exact realization varies across languages: some employ affixes on the verb, others use auxiliary verbs or special syntactic constructions.

In English, causative transitive constructions often employ verbs such as make, have, cause, or let to introduce the causative relation. For example, The manager made the team stay late demonstrates causation with the team as the object and a following infinitival clause. The sense is that the subject brings about or forces the action to occur, affecting the patient.

The distinction between causatives and simple transitives is a matter of semantics and morphosyntax: a causative transitive expresses another participant causing an event to occur, rather than merely performing the action themselves. Cross-linguistically, causative-transitive forms range from productive morphological derivations to periphrastic constructions, and some languages encode causation directly in the verb’s valence.

See also: causative, transitivity, causative alternation.