The formation of causative forms of German verbs is demonstrated with numerous examples – in fact, with a list meant to be fairly complete for the contemparary German language.

Rules

In the German language, as well as in other Germanic languages, there is a pattern how causative verbs are formed from non-causative base verbs. This pattern works according to the following rules:

The base verb is typically, but not always, intransitive. The causative verb is always transitive and has as its object the agent of the action denoted by the base verb. When the meaning of the base verb is “do something”, the meaning of the causative verb is “make him/her do something” or “cause to do something”.
The base verb is nearly always strong (past participle with -en and change of vowel). The causative verb is weak (past participle with -t and no change of vowel); it builds the perfect tense consistently with the auxiliary haben.
The causative verb is formed by replacing the vowel by -e- or -ä-, or at least into that direction. Sometimes, the consonant after the vowel acquires an additional plosive, e.g. -ch- → -ck- or -ss- → -tz-. The latter change is more typical for denoting intensive or repeated action, but it often occurs together with causatives.

Note that the same rules apply also in English, e.g. fall → fell, rise → raise, lie → lay, sit → set, and, only in a very special context, hang (hung) → hang (hanged). However, in English there are much fewer examples.

Unfortunately, there is no rule whether an -ä- or an -e- appears in the causative form. Fortunately, the spelling reform at the end of the 1990ies did not attempt to make this more “consistent”; the result would otherwise have been similar as with the word aufwendig (from aufwenden) which now can also be spelt aufwändig (from Aufwand), whereas *aufwänden remained wrong, for whatever reason.

Of course, there are also false friends, i.e. words that are not cognates but still exhibit a similar behaviour as far as the vowel change and the formation of the perfect tense are concerned, e.g. bieten → beten, fliehen → flehen, klimmen → klemmen, schinden → schänden.

This way of forming causatives is not restricted to base verbs; base nouns and adjectives are also possible, e.g. schwarz → schwärzen. Such pairs have been included in the list below when there is also a verb which could have been the base, e.g. prall → prellen with the cognate verb prallen. Always when the base verb is weak, this is a strong indication that the derivation of the causative verb is not directly from the base verb. See the list below for examples and look there for a correlation of remark 6 with remarks 8, 9, and 13.

The most frequent way of conveying a causative meaning in German is the same as in English: by applying an auxiliary verb lassen (“let”). In contemporary German, lassen is employed even when the meaning is actively causing something to happen as distinct from passively allowing something to happen; in English, one would mostly use “make” and not “let” in such contexts. In German, using machen (“make”) as an auxiliary verb sounds very archaic.

In German as well as in English, there are a number of verbs that are their own causatives: „Der Krug zerbricht.“ (“The jar breaks.”) and „Er zerbricht den Krug.“ (“He breaks the jar.”) can be constructed as in English, with the same distinction of auxiliaries when the final state is reported: „Der Krug ist zerbrochen.“ (“The jar is broken.”) vs. „Er hat den Krug zerbrochen.“ (“He has broken the jar.”). There is, however, no German equivalent to “The jar has broken.” Note that all these forms are no real passiv voice constructs (German: wurde / wird / ist worden; English: was / is / has been). Examples like zerbrechen have not been included in the list of examples unless the non-causative verb is strong and the causative verb is weak – a clear indication that these are indeed two distinct verbs. German schmelzen (“melt”) and verderben (“spoil”) once had this distinction but are now strong in both meanings; with schleifen and weichen (see the list for the various meanings of both words) the verbs are now mostly weak but the strong verbs are used in related meanings.

The author would appreciate learning more examples and including them in the list below.

Examples

In the table below, the more far-fetched examples are marked by a saturated background colour. In this context, “far-fetched” does not mean that these examples are etymologically wrong, but only that one of the verbs, typically the causative one, is archaic or otherwise unusual, or that the connexion between the two verbs is not at all obvious. Learners of the German language might choose to omit these pairs from their learning programme. Note that even for the more normal examples (those with the pale background colour), the meaning of the causative verb is not always a simple “cause to do”: see the “seman.” remarks.

(strong) base verb			weak causative verb	remarks
infinitive	past tense	perfect tense	weak causative verb	seman.	gramm.	etym.
beißen	biss	hat gebissen	beizen	2	5
bewegen	bewog	hat bewogen	bewegen	2	5, 7	11
biegen	bog	hat gebogen	beugen	2	5
(er)bleichen	erblich	ist erblichen	bleichen		7
blicken	blickte	hat geblickt	blecken	3	6
dringen	drang	ist gedrungen	drängen	2
dünken	dünkte/deuchte	hat gedünkt/gedeucht	denken	1	6
erschrecken	erschrak	ist erschrocken	erschrecken		7
ersaufen	ersoff	ist ersoffen	ersäufen
essen	aß	hat gegessen	atzen		5
essen	aß	hat gegessen	ätzen	2	5
fahren	fuhr	ist gefahren	führen	1	5
fallen	fiel	ist gefallen	fällen	3
fließen	floss	ist geflossen	(ein)flößen	3
futtern	futterte	hat gefuttert	füttern		5, 6	8
hängen	hing	ist/hat gehangen	hängen		4, 7	11
hängen	hing	ist/hat gehangen	henken	3	4
haften	haftete	hat gehaftet	heften		6	8
hassen	hasste	hat gehasst	hetzen	2	5, 6
kranken	krankte	hat gekrankt	kränken	2	6	9
lauten	lautete	hat gelautet	läuten	2	6	9
leiden	litt	hat gelitten	leiten	2		18
liegen	lag	ist/hat gelegen	legen		4
(er)löschen	erlosch	ist erloschen	löschen		7
nässen	nässte	hat genässt	(be)netzen	2	6	9
prallen	prallte	ist geprallt	prellen	1	6	9
rinnen	rann	ist geronnen	rennen	2		15
saugen	sog	hat gesaugt/gesogen	säugen	3, 10	5
schallen	scholl/schallte	hat geschallt	schellen	3	19	8, 19
schleifen	schliff	hat geschliffen	schleifen	2	5, 7	16
schwanken	schwankte	hat geschwankt	schwenken		6	13
schwingen	schwang	ist geschwungen	schwenken			13
schwimmen	schwamm	ist geschwommen	schwemmen	3
(ver)sinken	(ver)sank	ist ge-(ver-)sunken	(ver)senken
sitzen	saß	ist/hat gesessen	setzen		4
springen	sprang	ist gesprungen	sprengen	3
stecken	stak/steckte	(ist)/hat gesteckt	stecken		4, 7	11
stehen	stand	ist/hat gestanden	stellen		4	12
stieben	stob	ist gestoben	stauben/stäuben	2
(er)trinken	(er)trank	hat ge- (ist er-)trunken	(er)tränken		5
entrinnen	entrann	ist entronnen	trennen			15
verschwinden	verschwand	ist verschwunden	verschwenden	1
wachen	wachte	hat gewacht	wecken		6
walzen	walzte	hat gewalzt	wälzen	2	6	8
weichen	wich	ist gewichen	weichen	2	7	17
wiegen	wog	hat gewogen	wägen		5	14
(sich) winden	wand (sich)	hat (sich) gewunden	(sich) wenden	2	5
wissen	wusste	hat gewusst	weisen		5, 6, 21	9, 21
(sich) ziemen	ziemte (sich)	hat (sich) geziemt	zähmen	2	6	20
zwingen	zwang	hat gezwungen	zwängen	2	5

Remarks

The causative verb has attained a variety of new meanings beyond the original purely causative one.
One or both of the verbs have changed their meaning so that the meaning of the causative verb is no longer to cause the action of the base verb.
The causative verb has a more specialised meaning.
The perfect with the auxiliary sein is an older form which is in use in Southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (bairisch, alemannisch, ostfränkisch). There is, however, sometimes a tendency to regard Northern local usage, in this case the auxiliary haben, as “more standard”.
The base verb is transitive.
The base verb is weak.
The strong and the weak verb look the same in the infinitive; the difference appears only in some forms of the present tense and in all forms of the past tense and the past participle. (er)bleichen and (er)löschen have an additional prefix er- at the base verb which does not appear in the causative form.
The causative verb is derived from a noun, not from the non-causative verb which is a cognate.
The causative verb is derived from an adjective, not from the non-causative verb which is a cognate.
gesaugt has a somewhat more causative meaning (e.g. Staub gesaugt = used a vacuum cleaner) than gesogen (e.g. Luft eingesogen = drawn in air). Except with idioms (e.g. es sog ihn in die Tiefe), the strong form is becoming obsolete, see also stecken in remark 11.
With bewegen, hängen and stecken, a strong and a weak verb have merged their meanings to some extent; the weak verb is etymologically not just a causative form of the strong one. In the case of stecken the strong form is restricted to the simple past tense (stak) which is becoming obsolete. The strong verb bewegen (“motivate”) is obsolescent, at least outside of idioms (e.g. was mag ihn dazu bewogen haben?).
stellen is etymologically not a causative of stehen but it is perceived so and it is indeed a cognate.
The weak verb schwanken is a cognate but is not the verb from which schwenken is derived as a causative.
Strictly speaking, these two words do not belong in this list. Language mavens will insist that wiegen, besides its meaning “rock a child (in a cradle)”, must only be used in the sense “weigh, have a weight” but not in the sense “weigh, determine a weight”, for which latter meaning the word wägen has to be used. The etymology of the two words is, however, much simpler: they are in fact variants of the same word, wiegen being a recent formation for the now obsolescent wägen.
rinnen and rennen, entrinnen and trennen have a complicated etymology: rennen is now no longer used as a causative like English “to run a horse”, and in the history of the two words rinnen and rennen they were mixed up with a now extinct word trinnen (“separate oneself”) which exists now only as a causative trennen (“separate”), as entrinnen (“escape”, should more logically be *enttrinnen), and as abtrünnig (“disloyal”).
The weak verb schleifen was once a causative of the strong verb schleifen when the two verbs meant “[make] glide”. Now, both these meanings are denoted with the weak verb, the only meaning of the strong verb being “sharpen, grind” which squares better with “make glide” than with “glide”, contrary to its position in the list.
This is not a real causative, as the weak verb weichen (“soften”, esp. by watering) is indeed the causative of the weak verb weichen (“becoming soft”, esp. by being watered), whereas the strong verb weichen has a related but different meaning of “give way”. The three words are, however, cognates.
In Old High German times, leiden had a meaning of “go” or “proceed” which explains leiten as its causative. The Old English cognate liðan has not survived, only its causative lead.
The verb schallen (“sound”) has strong and weak forms mixed: in the simple past tense both are possible, whereas the past participle is weak. However, for the close cognate erschallen the strong forms erscholl and erschollen are preferred, and the participle verschollen (“missing”, “no longer heard of”) exists only in strong form. A reason for this mixture of strong and weak forms is that the verb has merged with its weak causative verb schellen (“make sound”) which was later lost except as in zerschellen (“crash into pieces with sound”). The modern weak causative verb schellen (“ring a bell”) is derived from the noun Schelle (“bell”) which is also a cognate.
ziemen (“be seemly”) and zähmen (“tame”, “domesticate”) are cognates but probably not simply as a causative “make seemly” from “be seemly”. Rather, the common root is dom (“house” as in “domesticate”) appearing in many Indo-European languages, and the imagery of ziemen is “fitting like building blocks of an edifice”.
The agent of the base verb wissen is not the accusative object of the verb weisen, which is not the causative of a verb but of an adjective, weise. That weisen is strong is another irregularity for a causative verb; however, this was a later development in the middle of the first millennium.

Article	Examples of German causative verbs
Author	Helmut Richter
published / modified	1998-09-05 / 2014-07-19
Article URL	https://hhr-m.de/de-causative/
contains	entire article

Examples of German causative verbs

Rules

Examples

Remarks