Fer plus Infinitive

Fer + bare infinitive presents one participant as causing another event: La broma va fer riure els nens “The joke made the children laugh.” The cause may be deliberate, accidental, coercive, or merely arranged. English divides these readings among make, have, get, and sometimes cause, while Catalan keeps the same causative structure and lets context identify the relationship.

The hardest point is not the form of the infinitive—it never agrees—but the grammatical role of the causee, the participant who carries out or undergoes the infinitive's event.

One causative unit

The pattern is finite fer + bare infinitive. There is no a or de between the two verbs. The finite form of fer agrees with the causer and locates the causation in time; the infinitive stays unchanged.

The forms fa, va fer, and faríem change with person, number, tense, and viewpoint. Riure, canviar, and esperar do not. In ens va fer canviar, moreover, va fer is the completed periphrastic past: adding a would destroy that reading.

With an intransitive infinitive: the causee is direct

If the infinitive has no direct object of its own, the causee behaves as the direct object of the causative complex. A full noun phrase normally has no personal a; a weak pronoun is accusative.

Here riure and sortir have no direct object. The participants els nens and la periodista therefore fill the direct-object slot made available by the causative structure: els va fer riure; la va fer sortir.

This is an important difference from automatic Spanish-influenced personal a. Catalan does allow personal a in specific configurations elsewhere, but neutral fer riure els nens does not insert it simply because the causee is human.

With a transitive infinitive: the causee is indirect

If the infinitive already has a direct object, that object keeps the direct-object role and the causee is expressed as an indirect object with a or a dative pronoun.

In these examples, el poema and l'escena are the things read or repeated, so they are direct objects of the infinitives. A la Carla / li and als actors / els identify the readers or repeaters as causees in the dative role.

The difference is structural, not a matter of politeness or animacy:

Masculine plural els/los has the same written shape for accusative and dative in several positions, so examples such as els va fer... can hide the contrast. The singular feminine pair la versus li exposes it clearly.

Object clitics belong to the whole complex

The direct object of the infinitive can also appear as a weak pronoun before finite fer:

If both the lower object and the dative causee are pronominalized, their regional order and form follow the ordinary two-clitic system. In the Central baseline, el poema + a la Carla gives l'hi: La professora l'hi va fer llegir. (regional: Valencian) the corresponding standard cluster preserves li and orders it li'l: La professora li'l va fer llegir. Do not combine one region's order with another region's forms.

When fer itself is nonfinite, the causee can attach to it: Vull fer-la riure “I want to make her laugh.” With a higher modal, the cluster may also climb: La vull fer riure. It does not attach to the lowest infinitive as though the causee were the object selected by riure.

Causing a reaction versus arranging a service

The same syntax covers direct causation and “having something done.” An explicit causee often suggests making or getting a person to act; an omitted causee often backgrounds the professional or agent who performs a service.

In farem revisar la caldera, the person who will inspect it is irrelevant or recoverable. Catalan does not need a passive infinitive equivalent to English “have the boiler checked”; the causative and the omitted causee do the work. In m'he fet tallar els cabells, reflexive m' identifies the person who arranged and received the service, while els cabells remains the direct object of tallar.

Fer que plus a finite clause

Catalan can also use fer que + finite clause, especially when a full independent-looking result is clearer than the compact causative.

The subjunctive cancel·léssim presents the cancellation as the dependent result brought about by the storm. This is not a rule that every que or every occurrence of fer automatically takes the subjunctive; compare factual El meteoròleg va dir que cancel·laríem el concert, where the report asserts what would happen.

The finite construction is also useful when the compact argument structure would become difficult to parse. It does not, however, license copying an English make + object + finite verb pattern.

Viewpoint and negation

The simple present is natural for a current effect: Aquest soroll em posa nerviós i no em deixa pensar; em fa perdre el fil. English may say “is making me lose my train of thought,” but Catalan does not require estar fent unless the ongoing phase itself is being contrasted.

Negation before fer denies the causation: No el vaig fer marxar “I didn't make him leave.” Negation before the lower infinitive is possible when the caused event itself is negative, but a finite paraphrase is often clearer: Va fer que no entréssim “He made sure we did not go in.”

Mini-dialogue

The omitted inspector in l'he fet revisar is backgrounded. In m'han fet canviar la bateria, la bateria is the direct object of canviar, so the person required to act appears as dative m'.

Regional and register perspective

The direct-versus-indirect causee contrast belongs to the shared standard language. Regional differences are most visible in clitic clusters, not in the core causative logic. Use Central l'hi and Valencian li'l as coherent systems. Central, Valencian, Balearic, Northwestern, Northern, and Alguerese varieties share the bare-infinitive construction; no special regional preposition is required between fer and the infinitive.

Common Mistakes

1. Inserting a preposition between fer and the infinitive.

2. Marking an intransitive causee as indirect.

3. Failing to mark the causee as indirect when the infinitive has an object.

4. Conjugating both verbs.

5. Adding a to the periphrastic past or using indicative in the finite result.

Key Takeaways

Use fer + bare infinitive, with only fer carrying tense and agreement. If the infinitive has no direct object, its causee is direct: la fa sortir. If the infinitive already has a direct object, the causee is indirect: li fa llegir el poema. Context distinguishes making someone act from arranging a service, and regional clitic systems affect the surface form without changing the underlying valency.