Get (like have) and contrary to make and cause can take different types of embedded
complements:
1. John got to the airport by car
2. John got a new car
3. John got ill
4. John got killed
5. John’s doctor got him walking again in no time at all:
6. John got the car repaired very quickly
When get takes an infinitival complement, it is with to, not without
a. John got all the students to perform the same experiment:
is this impossible without to? Not possible
Get has a resultative meaning not a stative meaning, it is like cause/make and unlike have
in this respect. In other words get means “cause to have”
Get has the same “volitional” effect found with have
John got Mary to trip on the stairs.
John got the water to boil.
Notice that even things can have a “volitional” interpretation
How did you get the washing machine to go?
Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the figures to add up
The washing machine refuses to start
That blasted rock refused to move!
Get takes an “indirect” causation, like cause, not a direct one like make
Causative do
Do was used extensively as a causative in OE and ME, as in "He did him die", but was recessive by the end of the ME period. Many linguists support the hypothesis that periphrastic do developed from causative do. In a sentence like "He dude writes sende" (as quoted in Kroch et al. 1985: 284) the subject of the sentence is open to an agentive interpretation. The causative meaning would read as "He caused somebody to send writes". From the semantic point of view the subject of the lower clause somebody could be dropped in the original sentence. Thus it is possible to reinterpret the subject of the higher clause he as the agent, as doing the action himself. Finally there is no difference anymore between the "causing" and the "doing" of the action. There exist a lot of ambiguous cases like this one, since it can be interpreted both as causative or as periphrastic.
Stein suggests on the grounds of his findings in the earliest colloquial texts analyzed in his study, the Paston letters (1422-1509), that it could be a Latin-induced structure with perfective meaning (1990: 17) and the interpretation as causative or non-causative depends on the pragmatic context in which the proposition occurs. The perfective semantics of the construction was not focused on who did the action but on what happened. He points out that work has naturally been done only on written texts which at the time had strong Latin influence. Denison (1985: 52) also assumes causative do to have entered late OE as a Latinization that did neither clash with the syntax nor with the semantics of OE don. A problem arises if one assumes that periphrastic do developed from causative do because naturally the two should be successive in time then. What is striking here is that there is no time lag in the appearance of the two cases. Denison asserts that causative and periphrastic uses "appear more or less simultaneously" (1985: 47).
Stein highlights in his study the pragmatic background of the causative use of do. In most examples from the Paston letters the pragmatic context is directive. Do in this context then has a causative meaning. The agent is dropped, as in the example above, and focus is not on the subject or agent but on the directive being fulfilled either by the addressee or in his or her responsibility. Stein assumes that this second person, directive context has been the most frequent use of the original causative do. Further he suggests that the most likely context was that of official writing which implies giving orders to individual persons. People usually received orders orally from a person in a socially higher rank, inclusively official and legal use. Probably people adopted this use but ignored the directive meaning and transferred it to the first and third person. There it developed its periphrastic form.
Exercise 1. Translate the following sentences paying attention to the usage of causative constructions. Explicate and comment your choice.
1. “It is clear that Arab leaders are prepared to listen to us and are prepared to have us play the role of peacemakers,” said a ministry spokesman.
2. The country will judge the President on the speed with which he can get the miners working again.
3. To have your phone tapped in Rome today has become a matter of prestige.
4. Washington is trying diplomatically to get Moscow to cancel the nuclear deal with Iran.
5. On arms, the President once again promised to try to get Parliament to ratify the nuclear weapons treaty.
6. So much will depend not merely on the taxes the President will propose or the sacrifices he will ask when he finally presents his energy program in the next few days, but on how he can appeal to the better instincts of the nation, and get the non-governmental organizations of the country to go with him.
7. In the past Labour party conferences passed progressive resolutions, only to have them completely ignored by the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour.
8. There was anxiety that one side or the other would be hustled into rash decisions without consultations either with the other or with its allies.
9. Congress can get the President to reconsider his position.
10. Senior government officers claim that they have their enemy squeezed into five or six major concentrations, most of them near the border in the South.
WEEK 7. Topic: Science and scientific researches in education
Grammar: Modal and auxiliary verbs
Практических занятий – 6час., СРОП- 6час., СРО- 6час.
1. Speak on the following points:
1. What is the crucial meaning of the expression “scientific research”
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