What Are Causative Verbs?

Learn More With This Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms

An example of a causative verb: The devil made me do it

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In English grammar, a causative verb is a verb used to indicate that some person or thing makes—or helps to make—something happen. Examples of causative verbs include (make, cause, allow, help, have, enable, keep, hold, let, force, and require), which can also be referred to as causal verbs or simply causatives.

A causative verb, which can be in any tense, is generally followed by an object and another verb form—often an infinitive or a participle—and are used to describe something that happens because of a person, place, or thing whose actions bring about change in another entity.

Interestingly enough, the word "cause" isn't the prototypical causative verb in English because "cause" has a much more specific and less frequently used definition than "make," which is used most frequently to indicate someone making something happen.

Allows vs. Lets

English grammar is full of small rules that help speakers understand the vast subtleties of correct usage and style. Such is the case with the rules pertaining to the causative verbs "allows" and "lets," wherein both convey the same meaning—a person permits another to do something—but require different noun-verb form pairings to follow them.

The word "allows" is almost always followed by an object, which in turn is followed by the infinitive form of the verb "allows" is modifying. Such is the case in the sentence "Corey allows his friends to chat with him," wherein allows is the causative verb, "his friends" the object of the phrase, and "to chat" the infinitive form of what Corey is allowing his friends to do.

On the other hand, the causative verb "lets" is almost always followed by an object and then the base form of the verb that's being modified. Such is the case in the sentence "Corey lets his friends chat with him," wherein "lets" is the causative verb, "his friends" the object of the phrase, and "chat" the base form of the verb Corey lets his friends do.

The Most Popular Causative Verb

One would think that "cause" would be the most frequently used and typical example of causative verbs, but that's simply not the case.

Ugandan-born British linguist Francis Katamba explains in "Morphology" that the word "cause" is a "causative verb, but it has a more specialized meaning (implying direct causation) than 'make,' and it is much less common. 

Instead, "make" is the most common causative verb, which also differs from other causative verbs in that it omits the word "to" from complementary verb clauses that follow while in the active form (make), but does require the word "to" while in the passive form of "made." For example, "Jill makes me run daily," and "I was made to run daily by Jill."

In both senses, the causative verb "make" still implies that someone causes the subject to run, but English grammar dictates that the accompanying verb phrase for "make" differs for that of "made." Rules like these abound in usage and style, and it's important for English as an alternative language (EAL) students to commit these types of guidelines to memory—as they don't often appear in other forms.

Source

Katamba, Francis. Morphology. Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.

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Nordquist, Richard. "What Are Causative Verbs?" ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/what-is-causative-verb-1689833. Nordquist, Richard. (2023, April 5). What Are Causative Verbs? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-causative-verb-1689833 Nordquist, Richard. "What Are Causative Verbs?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-causative-verb-1689833 (accessed March 19, 2024).