Japanese Grammar: Causative-Passive Verbs

You’re probably thinking, “What the hell the causative-passive?” All I mean by this are verb structures that combine both the causative and passive to form “to be made to do by” sentences.

Since we’ve already covered both the causative and the passive we only need to combine the two conjugations to create the causative-passive. Once in the causative forms ALL verbs can be treated as group 2 verbs and so to change them into the passive we need only replace the final る with られる.

English	Group	Causative	Causative-Passive
to go	1	行いかせる	行いかせられる
to swim	1	泳およがせる	泳およがせられる
to eat	2	食たべさせる	食たべさせられる
to leave	2	出でさせる	出でさせられる
to do	3	させる	させられる
to come	3	来こさせる	来こさせられる

Grammatically, the final ending form (i.e. the passive) dictates the grammar and so the topic or subject is the agent of the action and the target particle is used to mean “by”.

私わたしはお母かあさんに宿題しゅくだいをさせられた。

I was made to do my homework by my mother.

Unlike the causative there is no ambiguity as to whether someone is making or letting you do something with this structure. As mentioned previously, the passive is often used in a negative sense which would imply “make” with the causative-passive structure.

Incidentally, this is the same as English. We wouldn’t say, “I was let to go home early by my boss”; we would simply say, “My boss let me go home early”.

考かんがえさせられる小説しょうせつ。

A thought-provoking novel.

息子むすこの態度じょうたいに心配しんぱいさせられている。

To be concerned by your son’s attitude.

公式こうしきに謝罪しゃざいさせられる。

To be made to publicly apologise.

映画えいがを見みていて、忘わすれていた昔むかしの恋愛れんあいを急きゅうに思おもい出ださせられました。

I was watching a film and was suddenly reminded of an old romance that I’d forgotten.