Questions tagged [causative-verbs]
The causative-verbs tag has no usage guidance.
60
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Preposition ‘to’ followed by gerund in Steinbeck: “started the little wind to moving among the leaves”
Q.1. This is a sentence by John Steinbeck. I don’t understand the verb construction of the preposition ‘to’ followed by a gerund instead of by an infinitive. What’s the explanation?
Evening of a hot ...
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Causative Structures: have + object + ing-form
"The ample supplies have the government urging vaccinations not
just for people at highest risk of dying from influenza, but for
anyone who wants to avoid a week of aching misery."
Original ...
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1
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Is the phrase 'get me started' in the idiom "don't get me started" an example of causative?
To me, the boldfaced part of 'don't get me started' looks like a causative because of the form:
get + object + past participle
and the meaning:
More often, the intent is negative and the expression ...
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2
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Is the structure "Who wants this ball to bang on their head?" acceptable?
I am proofreading an English book written by a non-native speaker.
A structure the author uses is the following
Who wants this ball bang on their head?
The meaning intended to be conveyed is: Who ...
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Girls who I've made [to] love me [duplicate]
Is that "to" mandatory and needed, or is it wrong and unneeded?
I give my friend great advice, saying to them how they shouldn't treat girls by telling my story, "All the girls who I'...
user470503
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2
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Is it ok to write "no one can help you make sense of your existence"? [closed]
I just read a sentence somewhere and as a non-native English speaker, I found the structure a bit different from the ways I have learned, the sentence is as below:
This is the feeling of loneliness ...
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1
answer
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What type of verb is EAT:FEED, KNOW:INFORM
We have verbs like :
EAT > FEED
KNOW > INFORM
My question is what kind of verbs are they? What are they called in grammar (e.g. causative, factitive etc)? I knew the name a long ago but forgot ...
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2
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Is there any usage of the verb ‘want’ in causative form?
I know that the verbs such as let, make, and have are causative, and when looking on the internet I found out that people generally don’t treat the verb want as causative.
However, if we look at these ...
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Are causative verbs auxiliary verbs?
I can't seem to find any definitive information on this topic, as most sources simply say "these are called causative verbs" and leave it at that. To my mind, they act like auxiliary verbs ...
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1
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What is the grammar structure of "arrange to have sent"? [closed]
Requests that clients send, or arrange to have sent, relevant reports from current and previous clinicians.
What is the grammar or usage of to have sent in the sentence above?
Thanks
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?
I'm thinking something along the lines of "imbue" or "instill", but neither of those words work perfectly unless you append "with value".
Ideally this would be a word ...
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Ambiguity in meaning of experiential pseudo-passive and causative [duplicate]
Native speakers of English language, What meaning (s) do you infer from the following sentence?
Bob had his child abducted.
Does it mean:
Bob did experience the abduction of his child.
Bob paid ...
user147384
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0
answers
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"Brown" and other causative color verbs [duplicate]
There are several verbs in English meaning "to cause to become [a given color]". Most of these, it seems, end in the suffix "-en". There are other adjectives as well that use "...
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What kind of verb classification is "causative"?
I understand why "causative" verbs like "let" and "allow" are described this way, but I don't understand how this classification relates to other verb descriptors. Is &...
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How is this sentence formed: "The seniors make the freshers write practical files." [duplicate]
How is this sentence constructed?
The seniors make the freshers write practical files.
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Passive causative in relative clauses
Causative is used to say that you arrange for someone else to do a job for you. For example, "John has the car repaired". This is different from "John has repaired the car" because the latter sentence ...
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Performative "allow, permit, let"
According to Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, page 208,
Allow, permit, and let can express deontic possibility, permission, but are also used more generally in a causative sense similar ...
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What is the difference between had and got? [closed]
Are there any significant differences in uses or meanings between these two words? Between the two example sentences below, does one sentence have a slightly different meaning compared to the other, ...
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2
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The meaning of causative 'have'
(1) He had a specialist examine his son.
(2) He had his son examined by a specialist.
About this pair, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 1236) says:
we have equivalence between (1) ...
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Causative - Passive/Active voice
Would you agree to the following guidelines:
In the Passive voice, the causatives "have" and "get" have the same meaning, but 'get' is less formal
In the Active voice, the causatives "have" and "get"...
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2
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Something had me do or Something had me doing something else?
I’m editing a short story and I’ve stumbled upon a problem. I
frequently use structures like:
Agony had my insides convulsing.
Defeat had me slumping into a chair.
Fear had my body shak...
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0
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Can someone please explain this version of the causative form? "I'll have you arrested"
As a non native speaker, I was taught to use the causative form like this:
if there's a subject: I'll have her send over the files.
if there's no subject: I'll have the files sent over.
And now ...
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1
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Why do we use zero infinitives with make, let, have?
When we use causative verbs as in
I asked you to do something
we use 'to do'.
However, we don't say
*I made you to do something
but just
I made you do something.
Is there any particular ...
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2
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Make somebody to do something
I know this verb does not take "to" after the direct object. Although, I spot T.L. Short in his "Peirce's Theory of Signs" always inserting "to" in this construction. What happens? Is it some formal-...
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0
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Parsing a sentence with a causative verb
I am an ESL teacher trying to help a student prepare for a test that will have a lot of sentence parsing. We are both stumped by the second verb in causative sentences. For example:
She asked the ...
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"I have you returning the car."
Context: Top Notch 2
Conversation:
Agent: I have you returning the car on August 14th here at the airport.
Renter: Yes. That's correct.
I am puzzled by this sentence in a conversation between a ...
0
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1
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has me beat vs. has me beaten vs. beats me
An LA Times column titled "A Word, Please: Microsoft unveils top 10 grammar mistakes, but its editing tools aren’t perfect" has this passage:
...
Microsoft’s No. 1 most common grammar ...
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"He made me down" sounds ok to say "He made me sad"? If not, why so?
I'm a newbie to this forum and I've been wondering if the sentence below is gramatically correct, and if not, pls explain the reason linguistically.
(I'm not a native English speaker.)
He made me ...
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make someone do vs. get someone doing/to do
I saw some questions about the causative "get" and understood "get someone to do" and "get someone doing" are almost interchangeable.
However, I wan't able to find an answer about the difference ...
user262078
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0
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Verbs formed from noun or adjective roots by adding -ja-
I know that there exist some verbs which were formed in Proto-Germanic by adding the causative marker -ja- to nouns or adjectives, such as these pairs:
doom (noun) > deem (verb)
food (noun) > feed (...
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Causative construction
A causative construction is used, for instance, when we have / make / ... someone do something for us. For example,
"I had the painter paint my house".
We could render this passively too:
"I had ...
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1
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Diagramming a Sentence with a Causative Verb
For a Reed–Kellogg sentence diagram, how would you diagram a sentence with a causative verb like "made"? For example:
The hot weather made her want to swim.
I understand that "weather" is the ...
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1
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Causative - Have sb do sth
I was wondering if this sentence is OK:
I will have you happy (I will cause you to be happy)
Does it have the same meaning of
I will make you happy
I wonder this because I came across a ...
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3
answers
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Causative with have/get + object + present participle: when can it be used?
I would like to know when the causative with have/get + object + present participle can be used and when it can't. In this answer I found this example:
He had us dancing/dance on the table ~ He got ...
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What is the role of the "to have the" in the sentence
He's been ordered to have the dog destroyed because it's dangerous but he refuses to comply. What is the role of the "to have the" in the sentence and how it is separated from he's been ordered to ...
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1
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Causative Verb with the verb 'relax' but not 'refresh'
My Chinese student asked me a question.
Why is the first sentence incorrect but the second is fine?
Music can make me REFRESH.
Music can make me relax.
Can you help please?
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1
answer
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How to analyse "He was found innocent."
"He was found innocent."
How exactly does this work? Is it just an idiomatic contraction of 'found to be innocent'?
What about "He was found alive"? 'Found' here is working a lot like a causative ...
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grammatical function of "think" in "to make us think"?
I'm a teacher, working on verbs with my students--and I got stumped by this sentence:
"Consumers are using products ... that are advertised to make us think they assist in weight loss"
the word "...
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2
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Why does the word "be" change so much?
In the phrase make <someone> {adjective}, it implies changing that person's emotion, but make <someone> be {adjective} implies forcing that person to comply.
Why does the word "be", which ...
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2
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"He had me do this" vs "He had me doing this" vs "He had my doing this"
I know this example sounds awkward, but it’s obviously grammatically incorrect to say "me being here" in sentences like this one:
He said me being here was wonderful.
That instance of me being ...
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1
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Is it right to say "Draw it big", and if so, does that mean that "big" is an adverb?
If I have already talked about drawing a circle and want to say to draw a big circle, is it right to say it like this:
Draw it big.
For this next sentence, would I need an adverb in the blank or ...
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Have vs. get in the causative
In causative constructions, for example:
I'll have him do it for me.
I'll get him to do it for me.
What is the difference in meaning between them? Obviously, there's a difference in register, with &...
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0
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"Having you feel that way makes me feel hopeless" or Having you feeling that way makes me feel hopeless"? [duplicate]
Which sentence is grammatically correct and WHY?
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Finding Cue words
In generalizing what I have learned from Japanese "conjugations" I learned quite a bit.
I have come to the realization that the same verb forms ARE present in English although English uses cue words ...
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2
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meaning of bare infinitivals
[i]
I saw her clean the room.
[ii]
He helped me do the work.
[iii]
She made me clean the room.
What makes you think so?
Let ...
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votes
1
answer
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Causative infinitive “get”
I have the following sentence:
I've got a lot of things to get done by this weekend.
Is it correct? Is to get done a valid causative form?
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2
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use of the verb "make" [closed]
The following is part of a blog post in The Huffington Post:
In the perfect world we would all be morning people. We would wake up calm, refreshed and ready to tackle the day. But this isn’t a ...
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Question about the proscribed use of “have” along with “get” or “be” [duplicate]
I have asked before and been told that along with the usage of have, there shouldn't be any other words like be or get, as the have already conveys the meaning on its own.
Example 1:
She never had ...
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Why does "enjoy" (almost) not have a causative sense?
Its etymology confirms that the en- is the same prefix as in enshrine, encourage, encircle, etc., which would normally suggest a causative sense. But rather than "to give joy to", the predominant ...
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"has scientists excited" or "has excited scientists"?
I saw the following on the Facebook page of Time. Is "has scientists
excited" or the perfect version "has excited scientists" correct?
What's the difference if both are correct?
The recent ...
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