Kazakh Causative, Passive and Reflexive Verb Voices

Kazakh grammar for beginners · Grammatical voice derivations in {{-дыр / -қыз / -т}}, {{-ыл / -іл}} and {{-ыс / -іс}}

In Kazakh, as in Turkish, you can alter the relationship between the subject and the action by inserting voice suffixes directly onto the verb root before any tense or personal endings.

These voice derivations create brand-new verb stems that conjugate just like regular verbs:

1. Causative (Özgelık etıs (Өзгелік етіс)): "to make/cause someone to do something" (Turkish ettirgen çatı).

2. Passive (Yryqsyz etıs (Ырықсыз етіс)): "to be done" (Turkish edilgen çatı).

3. Reciprocal / Mutual (Ortaq etıs (Ортақ етіс)): "to do together with one another" (Turkish işteş çatı).

Voice suffix summary

Voice	Suffix variants	Function	Turkish equivalent
Causative	-dyr / -dır / -tyr / -tır (-дыр / -дір / -тыр / -тір), -qyz / -kız (-қыз / -кіз), -t (-т)	"make/let/cause to do"	-dir / -tir / -t / -ir
Passive	-yl / -ıl / -l (-ыл / -іл / -л), -yn / -ın (-ын / -ін) (after l (л))	"be done / was done"	-il / -ıl / -n / -in
Reciprocal / Mutual	-ys / -ıs / -s (-ыс / -іс / -с)	"do with each other / together"	-iş / -ış / -ş

All voice suffixes attach directly to the verb stem and obey back-and-front vowel harmony and consonant assimilation.

The Causative Voice: making or causing an action

Attaching causative suffixes to verb stems creates transitive or causative verbs.

The Passive Voice: actions received by the subject

Attaching -yl / -ıl / -l (-ыл / -іл / -л) removes the direct agent, turning the object into the passive subject.

The Reciprocal / Mutual Voice: actions done together

Attaching -ys / -ıs / -s (-ыс / -іс / -с) indicates reciprocal action between multiple participants ("each other") or mutual cooperation.

Communicative sentences with derived verb voices

Comparing Kazakh Verb Voices to Turkish

Turkic verb voice suffixes are exceptionally uniform between Kazakh and Turkish:

1. Causative: Kazakh jaz-dyr-u (жаз-дыр-у) corresponds to Turkish yaz-dır-mak, and oqy-t-u (оқы-т-у) corresponds to Turkish oku-t-mak.

2. Passive: Kazakh jaz-yl-u (жаз-ыл-у) corresponds to Turkish yaz-ıl-mak, and aş-yl-u (аш-ыл-у) corresponds to Turkish aç-ıl-mak.

3. Mutual / Reciprocal: Kazakh söile-s-u (сөйле-с-у) matches Turkish söyle-ş-mek, and kör-ıs-u (көр-іс-у) matches Turkish gör-üş-mek.

These voice affixes maintain the exact same phonetic rules and semantic functions across both languages.

Keep going

← Sequential Converbs and Action Chains · Necessity, Obligation and Possibility →

All Kazakh lessons

• The Alphabet — Read Kazakh without learning Cyrillic
• How the Letters Behave — The things spelling does not tell you
• Turkish ↔ Kazakh Sound Laws — Six rules that unlock hundreds of words for free
• Vowel Harmony — The same system as Turkish — with one simplification
• Numbers — One to a thousand, and what a number does to the word after it
• Days of the Week — Saturday, and the days counted off it
• Months — Twelve names to learn outright
• Seasons — The four, and the weather that comes with them
• The Plural — One suffix, six written shapes
• Body Parts — From the top of the head to the sole of the foot, and the organs in between
• Personal Pronouns — Four ways to say "you", one word for "he" and "she"
• Possessive — The ending goes on the thing owned
• Family and Kinship — Lineages, generational ties, and reciprocal kinship
• The Copula — Saying "I am a teacher" with no verb at all
• Saying What Something Is Not — One extra word, and the personal ending moves onto it
• Asking a Question — One small word at the end, and nothing else moves
• Having and Not Having — No verb "to have" — only "there is" and "there is not"
• Where: the Locative — Location and time: one ending
• Where to: the Dative — Direction, destination, recipient, and purpose
• Where from: the Ablative — Starting points, origins, and standards of comparison
• Whose: the Genitive — Possession, definite noun phrases, and relationships
• What: the Accusative — The thing an action is done to — marked only when it is a particular one
• With: the Instrumental — Who you did it with, and what you did it with
• All Seven Together — What each ending marks, and every shape it takes
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• Verbs, Infinitives and Commands — From dictionary forms in {{-у}} to bare stems, commands and polite requests
• Simple Present Tense — Habitual actions, general facts and future intentions in {{-а / -е / -й}}
• Simple Past Tense — Witnessed and completed past actions in {{-ды / -ді / -ты / -ті}}
• Distant Past and Past Participle — Experienced past actions in {{-ған / -ген}} and conversational negation with {{жоқ}}
• Habitual Past and the "Used-To" Aspect — Expressing past routines in {{-атын / -етін / -йтын / -йтін}} and habitual participles
• Reported and Narrative Past — Hearsay, indirect evidence and surprise discoveries in {{-ыпты / -іпті / -пты / -пті}}
• The Present Continuous Tense — Ongoing actions and the four auxiliary verbs of physical stance
• Future Tenses — Definite intentions in {{-мақ / -мек}} and probable futures in {{-ар / -ер / -р}}
• Desires, Intentions and Optatives — Expressing wishes in {{-ғым келеді}} and making proposals in {{-айын / -айық}}
• Ability and Inability — Expressing "can" and "cannot" using converbs in {{-а / -е / -й}} and {{алу}}
• Conditionals and "If" Clauses — Real and hypothetical conditions in {{-са / -се}} and counterfactuals with {{еді}}
• Sequential Converbs and Action Chains — Linking consecutive actions in {{-ып / -іп / -п}} without repeating conjunctions
• Necessity, Obligation and Possibility — Expressing "must", "need to" and "might" with {{керек}}, {{қажет}} and {{мүмкін}}
• Verb Differences & False Friends — How common Kazakh and Turkish verbs parted ways over time

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