Positives and causatives

Question

What are they?

Pemmican · Accepted Answer

A Positive?? Maybe a non-negated sentence?
I come (positive) vs. I don't come (negative)?

A causative is is a special kind of a verb.
It "causes" someone or something to do something.

A causative is almost a weak verb, derived often from the past tense form of its original usually strong verb.
Compare these:

to fall - fell - fallen (to fall (by itself))
to fell - felled - felled ("to make someone/something fall")

to lie - lay - lain (to lie (by itself))
to lay - laid - laid (to make someone/something lie)

to hang - hung - hung (to hang (by itself))
to hang - hanged - hanged (to make someone/something hang)

...there are a few more verbs which go like this.

Btw: It is usually said, that "hang" and "hang" is one and the same word -> that's not true! Here, you can see, exactly like fall and fell, also hang and hang are two different and own verbs: The "original" hang and its causative hang.

I hope this helps.

Positives and causatives

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