As we should all know by now, intransitive verbs are handicapped by their inability to take a
direct object. Another way of saying this is that a subject cannot perform the action of intransitive verbs on a direct object. This is why a sentence construction like the following doesn’t work: “The magician
disappeared the rabbit.” Indeed, because of its intransitivity, the verb “disappear” simply won’t take “rabbit” or any other object. The English language allows only transitive verbs to take objects and act on them, as “feed” in “The magician
feeds the rabbit” and “eat” in “The rabbit
eats the carrot.”
This doesn’t mean, however, that when the operative verb is intransitive, the subject can’t ever make an action happen to an object, or make that object perform the action of the verb. We know, for instance, that the verbs
“make,” “get,” “have,” and
“let” enables the intransitive verb “disappear” to cause its action to happen to an object, as in these sentences: “The magician
made the rabbit disappear.” “The magician
got the rabbit to disappear.” “The magician
had the rabbit disappear.” “The magician
let the rabbit disappear.” The subject in these sentences is not seen as performing the action itself, but uses some other agency (“magic” or “sleight of hand”?) to perform that action.
We know, too, that
“make,” “get,” “have,” and
“let” can also make objects do the action of intransitive verbs: “She
made the dog jump.” “She
got the dog to jump.” “She
had the dog jump.” “She
let the dog jump.” This time, it’s clear that the “dog” is the object of the first verbs, “she” is the agent causing the action, and the action of the intransitive “jump” is what this agent causes the object to perform.
The verbs
“make,” “get,” “have,” and
“let” belong to a class of verbs called
causatives. In sentences that use a causative verb, the subject doesn’t perform the action of the operative verb but causes someone or something else to do it. And as we have seen above, causative verbs do very well in enabling intransitive verbs to surmount their handicap of being unable to act on an object.
We mustn’t suppose, however, that causative verbs are meant only for intransitive verbs. They work as well with transitive ones: “The mother
made her child take the medicine.” “The movie director
had the leading lady wear a wig.” The big difference is that transitive verbs—working with causative verbs or not—always need an object somewhere in the sentence for the latter to make sense. Drop the objects “medicine” and “wig” from the two sentences given earlier, for instance, and both simply collapse: “The mother
made her child take.” “The movie director
had the leading lady wear.”
The English language actually has many more causative verbs of the enabling kind, and to our small inventory so far we will now add these other common ones:
“ask,” “allow,” “command,” “compel,” “convince,” “encourage,” “employ,” “entice,” “force,” “hire,” “induce,” “insist,” “motivate,” “permit,” “persuade,” “require,” “suggest,” and
“urge.” Each needs to work on a[/i]n operative verb for the latt[/i]er’s action to take place at all.
Let’s now examine the ways we can construct sentences using causative verbs.
The most common, of course, is the construction where the causative verb is immediately followed by an object (noun or pronoun), which is followed in turn by an infinitive (“to” + verb stem): “Some countries
require foreign visitors to present a visa.” “We hired
temporary workers to handle the seasonal demand.” “Our school
encouraged us to learn English.”
The causative construction above has a variant specifically for the causatives
“let,” “had,” and
“made,” which can only take the so-called
“bare infinitive” (the infinitive without “to”): “Amanda
let her boyfriend kiss her.” “The mayor
had the illegal loggers face the irate townsfolk.” “The manager
made her pay for the missing goods.” Force-fitting “to” into such constructions results in disconcerting—and unacceptable—sentences like “Amanda
let her boyfriend to kiss her.”
The third type of causative construction is for the causative verbs
“insist,” “suggest,” “ask,” “demand,” or
“recommend,” which can neither take the infinitive nor the bare infinitive form of the operative verb. These causative verbs can work only in “that”-clause constructions like these: “The tour guide
suggested that we leave.” “The judge
demanded that the accused appear in court.” “The consultant
recommended that we divest.” The second verbs in these sentences are always in the base form, without tense, which differs from non-causative “that”-clause constructions like, say, “The tour guide
proved that we took a longer route,” in which the verb in the “that”-clause takes a tense.
Now, as an exercise, try to discover for yourselves which causative construction will work for the rest of the causative verbs in our expanded list.
This essay, which appeared in my weekly column “English Plain and Simple” in The Manila Times
on July 18, 2009, subsequently became Chapter 46 of my book Giving Your English the Winning Edge
, ©2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times
:Helping intransitive verbs surmount their handicap Next week:
When the verb’s object is the doer of the action itself (September 19, 2024)
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and X (Twitter) and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
