kausativ

Kausativ, or causative, is a grammatical category in which the meaning of a verb is extended to indicate that the subject causes someone or something else to perform an action or to undergo a change of state. In languages with a dedicated causative construction, the verb form or its surrounding syntax adds a causer to the event, thereby increasing the verb’s valency or altering how agency is assigned.

There are two broad ways causatives are encoded. Lexical causatives create a new causative verb by derivation, so a base verb has its own specialized causative meaning. Periphrastic causatives use auxiliary or helper verbs, light verbs, or phrase-like constructions to express causation without deriving a new lexical item. In addition, some languages employ a mix of both methods or rely on changes in voice, mood, or aspect to convey causation.

Across languages, causatives interact with other valency-changing operations such as applicatives and benefactives. They can be formed with prefixes, infixes, suffixes, or independent words, and may affect arguments such as the agent, patient, or experiencer. Causatives are often distinguished from related constructions like resultatives, which describe the state after an action, rather than the causation of the action itself.

Examples help illustrate the distinction. In English, causation is frequently expressed with make, have, or let: “The teacher made the student write an essay.” In German, causative meaning can be realized with lassen or durch certain participial constructions: “Ich lasse ihn arbeiten.” These forms show how causativity can be realized both lexically and periphrastically, with cross-linguistic variation in the exact strategy and morphology.