Causative Constructions in Basque

In Brief

Basque commonly forms a causative by adding -arazi to a verb: jan “eat” becomes janarazi “make someone eat; feed,” and ikusi “see” becomes ikusarazi “make someone see; show.” The new causer becomes part of the clause, and the person made to act may be absolutive or dative depending on the structure, so the auxiliary must be rebuilt rather than copied from the original sentence.

Overview

A causative presents one participant as causing another person or thing to perform or experience an action. English usually uses a separate verb—“make,” “have,” “get,” “cause,” or sometimes “let”—or chooses a different lexical verb such as “show” and “feed.” Basque can package the same relationship into a verb containing -arazi.

The suffix is easy to recognise, but using it confidently is a C1 topic because Basque agreement tracks several participants at once. The auxiliary (the short conjugated verb beside the main verb, such as du, dio, or didate) may encode the causer, the affected person, and another object. This is why causatives build directly on NOR-NORI-NORK agreement.

The core question is not simply “Where do I attach -arazi?” It is “Who causes, who is caused to act or feel, and what else is affected?” Once those roles are clear, case endings and auxiliary agreement become much easier to predict.

How It Works

Building the causative verb

The productive pattern combines a verb base with -arazi. The resulting verb takes normal Basque aspect and tense marking.

Base verb	Causative	Usual English sense
ikusi	ikusarazi	make see, show
jan	janarazi	make eat, feed
edan	edanarazi	make drink, give a drink
egin	eginarazi	make do
etorri	etorrarazi	make come, summon
joan	joanarazi	make go, send away
pentsatu	pentsarazi	make think
irakurri	irakurrarazi	make read
sinetsi	sinetsarazi	make believe, convince

Spellings in which the base and arazi are visually separated, such as jan arazi and ikus arazi, also occur in learning examples and in the concept examples. Many established causative verbs are written as one word. When writing, follow the spelling used by a reliable modern dictionary for the particular verb; do not alternate forms randomly within one text.

Aspect attaches to the complete causative verb:

Function	Form	Example
completed action	janarazi	janarazi diot — I have made him/her eat it
ongoing or habitual	janarazten	janarazten diot — I make him/her eat it
future or intention	janaraziko	janaraziko diot — I will make him/her eat it
verbal noun	janaraztea	janaraztea zaila da — making someone eat is difficult

Identify the participants first

A causative adds a causer, the person or thing responsible for bringing the event about. The original actor becomes the causee, meaning the person made or induced to act.

Compare:

Non-causative event	Causative event
Haurra etorri da. — The child has come.	Nik haurra etorrarazi dut. — I have made the child come.
Haurrak ogia jan du. — The child has eaten the bread.	Nik haurrari ogia janarazi diot. — I have made the child eat the bread.

In the first pair, etorri has only one original participant. The causative adds nik “I” as causer; haurra remains the absolutive participant (the unmarked core noun phrase), and dut agrees with both.

In the second pair, the base event already contains an eater and something eaten. The causative adds a third role. The causer nik takes the ergative ending -k (the case ending that marks the actor of a transitive clause), the food ogia is absolutive, and the causee haurrari takes the dative ending -ri (the case commonly used for a recipient or affected person). The auxiliary is consequently diot, not dut.

The usual agreement shift

Base pattern	Causative pattern	Model
NOR: one-participant verb	NOR-NORK	Mikel etorrarazi dut. — I made Mikel come.
NOR-NORK: actor plus object	NOR-NORI-NORK	Mikeli testua irakurrarazi diot. — I made Mikel read the text.

The second pattern is especially important. In Mikeli testua irakurrarazi diot:

• Mikeli is NORI, the causee marked by -ri;
• testua is NOR, the thing read;
• the unspoken nik is NORK, the causer;
• diot agrees with all three roles.

Do not choose an auxiliary by translating the whole sentence as English “make.” Choose it from the Basque participants. For plural objects or plural dative participants, agreement changes accordingly: testuak irakurrarazi dizkiot “I made him/her read the texts,” but ikasleei testua irakurrarazi diet “I made the students read the text.”

Compound expressions with egin

Expressions such as barre egin “laugh,” negar egin “cry,” and lo egin “sleep” form useful causatives with eginarazi:

• barre eginarazi — make someone laugh
• negar eginarazi — make someone cry
• lo eginarazi — make someone sleep, put someone to sleep

The noun remains before eginarazi. Agreement still depends on the actual participants: Txisteak barre eginarazi nau means “The joke made me laugh,” where nau marks “me” as the absolutive affected participant and the joke as causer.

Negation, modality, and tense

The causative behaves like other periphrastic Basque verbs (verbs expressed with a main form plus an auxiliary):

• Ez didazu sinetsarazi. — You have not convinced me.
• Ikasleei araua ulertarazi behar diegu. — We must make the students understand the rule.
• Etorrarazi nahi nuen. — I wanted to make him/her come.
• Galderak berriro pentsarazi zidan. — The question made me think again.

With negation, ez normally stands before the finite auxiliary: ez didazu .... With behar “must/need” and nahi “want,” the causative remains the meaningful verb inside the larger construction.

Examples in Context

Basque	English	Note
Haurrei jan arazi diet.	I have made the children eat.	Concept example; plural dative causee.
Irakaslearazi nau.	He/She made me teach.	Compact concept example; nau marks “me.”
Ikus arazi didate.	They have shown it to me.	Literally presents the event as causing me to see.
Pentsarazi didazu.	You have made me think.	The auxiliary includes “to me” and “by you.”
Nik Mikel etorrarazi dut.	I made Mikel come.	Intransitive base becomes a NOR-NORK causative.
Zuzendariak langileak joanarazi ditu.	The director made the workers leave.	ditu agrees with plural langileak as NOR.
Irakasleak ikasleei testua irakurrarazi die.	The teacher made the students read the text.	Text = NOR; students = NORI; teacher = NORK.
Medikuak pazienteari ura edanarazi dio.	The doctor made the patient drink water.	The drinker is dative because ura is the object.
Txiste horrek barre eginarazi nau.	That joke made me laugh.	A compound expression with eginarazi.
Albisteak negar eginarazi zion.	The news made him/her cry.	Past dative agreement in zion.
Ez didazu istorio hori sinetsarazi.	You have not made me believe that story.	Natural English may use “convince.”
Argazkiak opor haiek gogorarazi dizkit.	The photograph reminded me of those holidays.	A lexicalised causative; plural memories trigger dizkit.
Ikasleei araua ulertarazi behar diegu.	We must make the students understand the rule.	Causative followed by behar.
Bihar dokumentua sinaraziko diote.	Tomorrow they will make him/her sign the document.	Future -ko is added to the causative.

Common Mistakes

1. Keeping the auxiliary from the base sentence

• Wrong: Nik haurrei ogia janarazi dut.
• Right: Nik haurrei ogia janarazi diet.
• Why: The children are dative (haurrei) and must be represented in a NOR-NORI-NORK auxiliary. Dut has no dative slot; diet does.

2. Marking a transitive causee as ergative

• Wrong: Nik haurrak ogia janarazi diot.
• Right: Nik haurrari ogia janarazi diot.
• Why: The child is the person caused to eat and takes dative -ri here. The food remains the absolutive object, while the causer is ergative.

3. Treating every causee as dative

• Wrong: Nik Mikeli etorrarazi diot when you mean the basic pattern “I made Mikel come.”
• Right: Nik Mikel etorrarazi dut.
• Why: With a simple intransitive base such as etorri, the causee can occupy the absolutive NOR role. First check whether the base event already has an object.

4. Assuming -arazi always means force

• Misleading translation: Ikusarazi didate = “They forced me to see it.”
• Better in a neutral context: Ikusarazi didate = “They showed it to me.”
• Why: The construction marks causation, not a fixed degree of pressure. Context can make it helpful, instructional, accidental, persuasive, or coercive.

5. Translating English word for word

• Unhelpful strategy: Build “make + person + bare verb” and then replace each word.
• Better strategy: Label NOR, NORI, and NORK, then choose the Basque auxiliary.
• Why: English does not encode all three participants inside its verb. A smooth English translation can hide agreement information that Basque requires.

6. Forgetting agreement with a plural object

• Wrong: Liburuak irakurrarazi diot.
• Right: Liburuak irakurrarazi dizkiot.
• Why: Here liburuak means “the books” and is plural NOR. The plural object is reflected by -zki- in the auxiliary.

Usage Notes

-arazi does not carry one fixed social meaning. Janarazi may describe feeding a child, encouraging a patient to eat, or forcing someone to eat; the surrounding vocabulary supplies the attitude. If force matters, Basque can make it explicit with words such as behartu “force.” If permission matters, do not automatically assume a causative: a construction with utzi “leave, allow” may express “let” more directly.

Many causatives have become ordinary vocabulary items. Ikusarazi often means “show,” jakinarazi means “inform, notify,” ohartarazi means “warn, alert,” and gogorarazi means “remind.” Speakers need not consciously unpack these as “cause to see/know/notice/remember” each time. Their established meaning may also determine which complements and case patterns sound natural.

Causatives occur in everyday speech, but they are particularly useful in instructions, education, administration, and news. These settings often need to distinguish the person who orders or enables an action from the person who physically performs it. Long causative clauses can nevertheless become hard to process; naming participants explicitly is often clearer than relying on a dense auxiliary without context.

Word order remains flexible because case endings and agreement identify roles. A neutral order often places the causer and other noun phrases before the causative verb, but focus can move an element. The case marking must remain stable even when the order changes.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

Causation is a scale, not a single meaning

The same morphology can describe direct control, instruction, persuasion, an emotional trigger, or simply providing access to information. Compare Poliziak alde eginarazi zien “The police made them leave,” which strongly suggests direct pressure, with Argazkiak irribarre eginarazi zidan “The photograph made me smile,” where no intentional causer exists. An inanimate noun can therefore be NORK if it is construed as the cause.

Productive and lexicalised causatives

Some formations are transparently created for a particular situation: testua berridatzarazi “make someone rewrite the text.” Others function as dictionary verbs with specialised senses. With lexicalised verbs, learn the whole pattern—not only the source verb plus a mechanical gloss. Jakinarazi, for example, is usually best translated as “inform” or “announce,” not “cause to know.”

This distinction also helps with English translation. English “teach,” “feed,” “show,” “remind,” and “convince” may correspond to Basque causative-looking verbs, while English “make” may sometimes be better expressed by a different Basque construction. Morphological similarity does not guarantee identical usage.

Omitted participants

Basque frequently leaves noun phrases unspoken when agreement and context identify them. Pentsarazi didazu can be a complete utterance: the auxiliary identifies “you” and “to me,” while the matter that prompted the thought may be understood from context. For analysis, restore the hidden roles before choosing or interpreting the auxiliary. Ask:

1. What is caused or affected (NOR)?
2. Who experiences or performs the caused action (possibly NOR or NORI)?
3. Who or what brings it about (NORK)?

The answer is not always equally visible in the English translation. “They showed it to me” and “They made me see it” describe the same participant structure differently.

Stacking with other grammar

A causative verb can occur under negation, in subordinate clauses, with modal expressions, and in non-finite forms:

• Ez dut inor etorrarazi nahi. — I do not want to make anyone come.
• Irakasleak irakurrarazi digun testua luzea da. — The text that the teacher made us read is long.
• Hori sinetsaraztea ez da erraza. — Making someone believe that is not easy.

At this level, the main challenge is preserving the argument structure while another construction changes word order or the shape of the auxiliary.

Practice Tips

1. Transform complete sentences, not isolated verbs. Start with Haurrak ogia jan du, add a causer, change haurrak to haurrari, and then replace du with the required NOR-NORI-NORK form: Nik haurrari ogia janarazi diot.
2. Use a three-column role check. Before speaking, write NOR, NORI, and NORK. Put every explicit or understood participant in a column, then select the auxiliary. This prevents English word order from deciding Basque case marking.
3. Learn common causatives as phrases. Record norbaiti zerbait ikusarazi, norbaiti zerbait janarazi, norbaiti zerbait gogorarazi, and norbaiti barre eginarazi with their auxiliary pattern. Change person, number, and tense in short drills.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Trivalent Verb Agreement (NOR-NORI-NORK) — needed to encode the object, causee, and causer in forms such as diot, diet, and didazu.