As in English, Wenja may use a specific word to indicate the causative, the construction which means “to make do something”. Wenja uses the infinitive + daha ‘do, put’. This construction can make causatives to both transitive and intransitive base verbs.
Intransitive base verbs (verbs without objects)
Mu shnar sasa daha.
The man made me sleep
Shnar sasa daha-m.
I made the man sleep.
Transitive base verbs (verbs with objects)
Mu shnar mara hada daha.
The man made me eat an apple.
Shnar mara hada daha-m.
I made the man eat an apple.
In PIE proper, causatives weren't created using the verb 'to make'; rather, there was a suffix *-eye- that indicated roots as being causatives. While not used all of the time, there's also a suffix -aya- in Wenja that can mark a root as a causative. Check out the following pairs of words:
- nacha 'lose, be doomed' ~ nachaya 'injure, hurt'
- gala 'be cool' ~ galaya 'make cool, cold; chill; freeze'
- majish 'much, great' ~ mashjaya 'make great'
- su 'good, well' ~ suwaya 'make better, improve, upgrade'
- drama 'run' ~ dramaya 'make run'
- bala 'strong' ~ balaya 'strengthen'
- warha 'speak' ~ warhaya 'make talk'
- gwarma 'warm' ~ gwarmaya 'make, keep warm'
Of course, you can use -aya- with any noun, adjective or verb. Just making things up here:
- smarka 'hello' ~ smarkaya 'make say hello'
- gasuri 'hungry' ~ gasuryaya 'make hungry'
- langta 'damned; damnit' ~ langtaya 'make damned'
As a productive suffix you can use this until your heart's content!
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