English Grammar: The Causative Structure

hi everybody welcome to write to the top I'm Adam in today's video I'm gonna look at a complex grammar structure if you watched my video about how to add complexity to your writing I mentioned a few different structures that you need to get to know and today we're gonna look at one of those it's called be causative the causative structure now this could be a little bit confusing but once you see the actual mechanics of it it's not that bad it's some of it just has to do with memorizing the structure and the particular verbs that are gonna be involved okay so I'm gonna walk you through how to set it up the verbs you're gonna use and then different situations where this may come up a few things before we get into it a few things to keep in mind in a causative structure in the clause or the sentence depending how you're using it you're going to have a subject and you're going to have an agent you're gonna have two people or things depending on a situation each with its own verb the thing to remember is in the causative the subject doesn't do the action of the sentence the agent does the action the subject is almost always going to be human because the subject causes the agent to act things don't cause agents to act sometimes you can have animals causing other animals to act other people but generally it's gonna be people and agents can be people or things or animals there are situations where you can use the causative without a subject or at all but I'll show you that a little bit later the causative verb so again you're going to have two verbs as well a subject with a verb an agent with the verb and then the subject has the causative verb this is the main verb it takes the tense so if you're talking about the past and the causative verb takes the past future the causative verb takes the future and the action verb what is actually happening in the sentence right so s subject AG CV causative verb AV active verb when I put it all together in a little equation for you and the main causative verbs that you need to keep in mind have make get and let right so the second the the boss had his secretary deliver the application right that's a sentence you're gonna look at have is the causative when we use have basically we are delegating or we're giving someone a task we are tasking that person with a specific chore etc if you make someone do something then you're forcing them to do it if you get someone then you persuade or ask them or it to do it if you let then you permit now these are also technically causative verbs you can use them in the causative structure they're not necessarily cause it a verb but you can use them in this structure but they are a little bit more self-explanatory and generally a little bit easier to use these are the ones that give people trouble and these are the ones I'll focus on okay so let's look at it all together here is the equation basically this is how you're gonna put it all together you have your subject on your causative verb the agent is the object of the causative verb so you still have your SVO structure plus the action verb now notice I have to or base it basically means infinitive form to verb or just the base verb verb okay and the the action verb can be transitive or intransitive with an object without an object so the boss this object had the causative verb so basically delegated or tasked with the secretary is the agent he or she will be doing the action take the action notes the object take a V action verbs take notice the object to takes now keep in mind that we're looking at the right now I'm looking at the active form you have active and passive we're looking at the active have uses a base verb the action verb is going to be base with make the action verb is going to be base so had and take with get you can have to verb infinitive action verb with let you're gonna have only the base and I also added help because help can be followed by a base verb or an infinitive verb there's no difference use whichever one you like personally I always go with the base because it's one less word to type or write ok hope everybody's with me so far I'm gonna show you examples make it a lot easier most CEOs have their assistants take care of bookings and itineraries so the CEO he or she is too busy to worry about details so he tells the assistant to take care of the bookings he has the assistant take care of the bookings more CEOs have general situation the CEO will have his assistant the CEO had her assistant again the causative takes the tense doesn't matter positive or negative teachers do not make students complete assignments to be mean they do it to reinforce the lessons parents who let their children play so notice sorry have and base verb take we have make and base verb complete let and base verb play allow their children to play allow and infinitive right so you have to make sure you you remember the combinations basically the mechanic finally got the car to idle at a stable rpm notice that I can the agent can also be a thing so he got the car to idle get with infinitive the intern had the copier print 100 copies so again the agent person thing doesn't matter as long as it makes sense now it's very very important when you're writing this kind of structure to make sure and this is where a lot of people make mistakes as well make sure that the agent can do the action often I see people using like the agent doing something that is impossible for the agent to do the intern had the copier ask for more toner it doesn't really work that way right the copier can't ask anything it can send a message to the manufacturer to send more toner that's a little bit different okay so now we're gonna look at the passive causative and the passive causative is where it starts to get a little bit trickier okay we're gonna use have and get plus the past participle of the action verb so do did done done is the past participle and we're not gonna use a be verb so have and get plus the past participle no be verb let allow and ask with a past participle with the be verb in the base or infinitive form so B or to be plus past participle notice I don't use make because you can't make something B or someone be passive you can only cause them or force them to take an action so we're not using the verb make and here is that basically the equations you have subject plus the cause of the verb means you're causing something plus the object now here's becomes a little bit tricky because in the passive I'm not putting the abdi sorry the agent in this place so this object is actually the object of the action verb but the object and the action verb combined sort of work like the object to the cause of the verb but again you don't need to worry too much about that you just need to learn the equation plus the past participle of the action verb with or without be optional agent if you want to include the agent if it's important for the sentence put it in if it's not leave it out again examples are the best way to look there's the equation again just to keep us to remind you so the student had what his application delivered so technically the whole causative the object plus the passive action verb work like an object you had but remember that the application is actually going with the verb with the action verb and directly to the university's dean there's no agent because I probably know who it is it's a courier or somebody like that the bride-to-be got what her dress altered altered means like fixed who did it her sister her mother the seamstress it doesn't matter but sorry let's go a review had delivered no B got altered no be the director would not allow author I would not let his deputy be interviewed okay here's the beaver with let the director would not allow his deputy to be interviewed to be with allow be with let no B's otherwise now it's also very important to remember or to recognize that these sample sentences although I'm using the passive action verb the passive form of the action verb the sentence itself the complete sentence is still active because I have the subject with an active verb the subject is causing something to happen right so we still have an action sentence or an active sentence if you want to make a passive sentence then you need to make the main verb the causative verb a passive bill was asked to have his transcripts delivered okay so to have his transcript delivered so I have passive causative herb passive action verb and the whole thing is passive or bill was asked to have his parents bring active action verb but I still have a passive causative verb the sentence itself is in the passive form you're not gonna use had or got in a passive was had doesn't work was God doesn't work you can't say Bill was made to have so he was forced basically to have his transcript delivered in that case it would be okay now here is where it gets tricky because everything I've shown you showed you so far is about using the causative in its own in its own structure in its own cause but you can also convert this causative structure into phrases where there's no subject at all you're just using the phrase the cause of your phrase so if you are thinking of you're thinking about something what is it having your computer looked at so here I have it may not be clear but I have a causative phrase having your computer looked at by a technician so if you're thinking of letting the technician look at your computer same idea still letting it's still you have a agent right so the main thing to remember is that the technician is the agent you are the subject of the whole situation because you are thinking about doing this or having this done so here you're having is still the causative verb but used in the gerund form used like a noun basically and remember jaren's are still verbs although they're being used as nouns in the particular context they're being used so having object looked at action verb passive form technician agent and you still have a causative within a adverb clause and then of course you have your independent clause following just because so here I'm using again I'm starting with an adverb clause just because some companies now here is technically the subject of the adverb clause just because some companies make their employees work on weekends make they're forcing them their employees and then remember work you're using a base verb still and the that's the key if this was an action if you are thinking of having the technician look at if you're using the active form it's the same thing you're still going to use the same structure as having even though it's a gerund looked at it's still going to be the base form you have to remember the combinations basse make bass okay it does not mean is legal should the board decide to have its member so first of all using should as an inversion if the board decides to have so if the board you can make it a bit formal and start with should means like if in this case should the board decide what to have so right away you're starting with an infinitive form of the have as an object to the verb decide but to have its members commit have agent action verb right and then you're using a different combination here I use a gerund phrase here I'm using an infinitive phrase there's no subject to the causative verb there's just the causative with the agent with the action verb right and the key is for you to recognize it when you read it and for you to use it correctly when you're writing it and I use this sentence before I want to mention it again parents who let so who is the adjective relative pronoun refers to parents but it's still a subject who subjects let causative verb they're children agent play in a base form etc etc again recognition if you notice an agent if you notice more than one verb again remember have having is a verb in a gerund form to have is still a verb when you start when you look at a sentence and there are just too many verbs and you can't find a subject for each one start to think about the causative form because that's what may be happening instead of looking for a subject look for an agent who's doing an action and look for something someone or some way that this agent is being caused somehow to do this action and then you'll find your causative form okay now I know it's tricky as long as you remember the equations as long as you recognize the different pieces within this equation you should be able to recognize causative in your readings and hopefully start using them in your writing now as a side note any of you out there who are taking a TOEIC exam this is another English test mostly used in that Asia the causative for sure will be on the TOEIC exam you'll have at least a couple of questions make sure you know how to recognize the causative okay otherwise if you have any questions about this video please ask me in the youtube description box or the youtube comment section and come back next week I'll have some more grammar vocab writing tips for you then okay bye bye

Channel: Write to the Top

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Keywords: IELTS, TOEFL, English writing, writing skills, language test, English grammar, English vocabulary, high score, how to write an essay, essay writing, test tips, English, writing, English test, grammar, how to write, TOEFL high score, language skills, IELTS high band, IELTS writing, TOEFL writing, essential grammar, causative structure, complex structures, sentence variety

Id: gY-lH4zBXKk

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2019