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A causative form, in Linguistics , is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain state). All languages have ways to express causation, but they differ in the means. In some languages there are Morphological devices (such as Inflection ) that change verbs into their causative forms, or adjectives into verbs of "becoming". Other languages employ Periphrasis , with idiomatic expressions or Auxiliary Verb s. All languages also have lexical causative forms (such as English ''rise'' → ''raise''). MORPHOLOGICAL CAUSATIVITY In Sanskrit , there is a causative form of the verb (''n.ijanta''), which is used when the Subject of a clause forces or makes the Object perform an action. The causative Suffix ''-ay'' is attached to the Verbal Root (this may cause vowel Sandhi to take place).
In most Semitic Languages there is a causative form of the verb. It is postulated that in Proto-Semitic the causative verbal stem was formed by the ''š-'' prefix, and this has become ''ʔa-'', ''hi-'' or ''ī-'' in different languages.
In Japanese there is a similar causative/obligative inflection:
Causative forms are also found in some European languages such as Finnish .
In the Māori language of New Zealand, the ''whaka-'' prefix can be added to a verb, for example:
In Guarani , an Amerindian language, the ''mbo-'' prefix is added to oral verbs, and ''mo-'' to nasal verbs:
Notice that the causative suffix is often used irregularly and/or because of Historical Reasons , e.g. Finnish:
PERIPHRASTIC CAUSATIVITY There are no regular causative inflections in English , nor in any of the major European languages, which resort to idiomatic uses of certain verbs like English ''make'' or ''have'', French ''faire'' or ''laisser'', or German ''lassen''. For example:
Note that this type of structure is more complicated than the inflectional causative form exemplified in Sanskrit, since it has two verbs and three arguments: the first is the subject of the first verb; the second is the object of the first verb but also the subject of the second; and the third is the object of the second verb. These arguments can be exchanged using Passive Voice (in either verb), but the result can be cumbersome or even ungrammatical. Other complex constructions include the use of subjunctive forms. Spanish uses these often, since it does not allow some simpler constructions that English permits.
In the Romance Language s, a number of verbs alternate between intransitive (semantically Middle Voice ) and causative transitive, using a pseudo-reflexive Clitic Pronoun :
LEXICAL CAUSATIVITY In many cases, a language simply uses a different lexical item to indicate a causative form. For example, the causative of English ''rise'' is ''raise'', and the causative of ''eat'' is ''feed''. English allows a notable freedom in verb valency, resulting in verbs like ''break'', ''burn'' or ''awake'', which may be causative or not (''he burns it'' = ''he causes it to burn''). Causativeness is therefore zero-marked in many English verbs. In Japanese , there are a large number of verbs that alternate in various semi-regular patterns between intransitive forms and causative transitive forms, for example:
CHANGES OF STATE In languages with stative verbs (equivalent to English adjectives), the acquisition of a quality, or changes of state, can be expressed with causatives in the same way as with regular verbs. For example, if there is a stative verb ''to be large'', the causative will simply mean ''to enlarge'', ''to make grow''. The reflexive form of this causative can then be used to mean ''to enlarge oneself'', or even as a middle voice, ''to grow''. CAUSATIVE SYNTAX A causative form or phrase can be thought of as a Valency -increasing Voice operation, which adds one argument. If the original verb is intransitive, then the causative construction as a whole is transitive: ''to fall'' → ''to make (sbdy./sthg.) fall'', ''to topple (sbdy./sthg.)'', or indeed, ''to fell'', a fossilised form from when causatives were an inflexional part of English grammar. If the original verb is transitive, the causative is ditransitive: ''to eat (sthg.)'' → ''to make (sbdy.) eat (sthg.)'', ''to feed (sthg.) to (sbdy.)''. For the purpose of syntax, a Derivation that turns an adjective or noun into a "verb of becoming" works the same as a causative construction for intransitive verbs. For example, in English the derivational suffixes ''-(i)fy'' can be thought of as a causative:
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