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Causative Form

Add -saseru, -sasemasu to the stem of v-stem verbs (-sasenai, -sasemasen for the negative), and add -aseru, -asemasu to the stem of c-stem verbs (-asenai, -asemasen for the negative).

トラコを台所のテーブルから下りさせました。
Torako o daidokoro no teeberu kara orisasemashita.

I made Torako get off the kitchen table.


This page is a part of "Some Notes on Japanese Grammar" published for your personal use, with the kind permission of Keith Smillie (http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~smillie/)
Comments (7)
"negative" base of verbs
7 Tuesday, 09 February 2010 12:42
tony
The verb stem which ends in the vowel sound "a" for godan verbs is often called the "negative" base, because it is used for the negative endings -nai and -nakatta. This is the stem used for the -saseru ending as well.

iku -> ika + saseru = ikasaseru
au -> awa + saseru = awasaseru
Note that when the last syllable of a dictionary form is "u", it changes to "wa"-- alien-san's inflection was incorrect.

taberu -> tabe + saseru = tabesaseru (ichidan verb)

suru and kuru are irregular, but again the stems used are the same ones used with -nai:

suru -> shinai, shisaseru
kuru -> konai, kosaseru

This information is explained on the main page on Verbs, http://www.studyjapanese.org/language-reference/verbs .
@ K.H. wasantha kumar
6 Tuesday, 09 February 2010 11:45
alien
Iku-ikasareru,au- aasareru,taberu tabesareru, others donno
about causative form
5 Sunday, 04 October 2009 16:23
K.H.wasantha kumar
i am not clear how to use SASERU form with the verbs IKU AU TABERU KURU SURU
へへ
4 Monday, 20 April 2009 01:07
Alynne07
is this 'bei' or 'ba' in chinese? should be 'ba', i think , if passive is 'bei'.....
What causative means
3 Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:34
tony
Causative means "causes to happen". So in the example sentence, "made" is the key word-- I caused Torako to get off the kitchen table.

The -saseru and -aseru endings inflect the same way ichidan (ru-dropping) verbs inflect, so the polite inflections are -sasemasu, -sasemasen (negative), -sasemashita (past), -sasemasendeshita (negative past), and similarly for -aseru.

@alynne-san: So -sasemasen and -asemasen are the endings for causative negatives in the present/future tense, not past negatives.
whoa.
2 Monday, 13 April 2009 16:53
Alynne07
させません n あせません r past negative, rite?
Ok!
1 Thursday, 05 March 2009 00:13
Nott
Sorry, wikipedia solved my problem.
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