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俺一人に琥珀さんと翡翠をかまわせているのも申し訳ないから、とりあえず二人にはもとの仕事に戻ってもらった。

I am pretty sure it's the causative form here since the causative-passive would require 俺一人 to be marked with は.

I am not sure why 俺一人 is marked with に instead of を though.

I understand the meaning of the sentence, it's just that i do not understand why the particles are like that.

Shouldn't it be

俺一人を琥珀さんと翡翠にかまわせているのも申し訳ないから、とりあえず二人にはもとの仕事に戻ってもらった。

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構【かま】う (= "care about", "mind", "worry about") can be used in the forms of both "～に構う" (intransitively) and "～を構う" (transitively).

For example, you can both say 「俺はお前に構っている暇がない」 and 「俺はお前を構っている暇がない」, and they're semantically the same! According to BCCWJ Corpus, "～に構う" is roughly three times more common than "～を構う".

You seem to know how to make causative forms from both intransitive and transitive verbs, but here's the summary. This question helps, too.

The causative version of "SがVする" is "SをVさせる" if V is an intransitive verb that does not take を. So:

　琥珀さんと翡翠が 俺一人に かまっている　　(かまう here is intransitive)
→ 琥珀さんと翡翠を 俺一人に かまわせている (using causative form)
→ 俺一人に 琥珀さんと翡翠を かまわせている (swapping word order)

The causative version of "SがOをVする" is "SにOをVさせる" if V is a transitive verb. So:

　琥珀さんと翡翠が 俺一人を かまっている　　　(かまう here is transitive)
→ 琥珀さんと翡翠に 俺一人を かまわせている (using causative form)
→ 俺一人を 琥珀さんと翡翠に かまわせている (swapping word order)

In conclusion, the original sentence and your suggestion are both valid, and sound equally natural to me.

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  • perfect. So transitive verbs have alwasy the を particle and intransitive have the に? If that is so no wonder I was getting confused. Looking online I found that 構う is transitive but the example used に.
    – Splikie
    Nov 11, 2015 at 17:22
  • I may be wrong but my current understanding is that transitive verbs always take を, and intransitive verbs take various particles (と/に/から/へ and even を).
    – naruto
    Nov 11, 2015 at 17:52
  • Oh ok, I tought you were a native speaker since you seem to know a lot. Looking up on the internet I found out that it always use と/に/から/へ and を when going from a smaller to a bigger place or when crossing through something.
    – Splikie
    Nov 11, 2015 at 19:10
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    I am a native speaker of Japanese, and native speakers of Japanese are generally bad at explaining Japanese using grammatical terms. In fact this was the first time I thought about Japanese causative forms seriously :-)
    – naruto
    Nov 11, 2015 at 19:14

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