MAKING

This type has one independent role, the Causer, who does something to bring about an event or state, referred to by a complement clause. The subject of the main clause (the Causer) and the subject of the complement clause are most often human, but neither has to be, e.g. These new shoes make my feet ache (by being too tight), She caused/allowed the flowers to die (by not watering them when we were away). It is also possible, if not too common, for the Causer to be an ING complement clause, e.g. Having been a failure in his first job made John try much harder in the second one. There may also be an optional constituent stating how the Causer brought things about; it is often introduced with by, e.g. John made Fred open the safe by threatening to tell about his indiscretions.

Unlike other types, each MAKING verb takes just one variety of complement clause. There are four semantically defined sets; their more important members are:

1. make, force, cause, one sense of drive, causative senses of get and have; tempt—Modal (FOR) TO complement, with the for always omitted and the to sometimes omitted;
2. let, permit, allow—Modal (FOR) TO complement, again with the for always and the to sometimes omitted;
3. prevent, stop, spare, save, specific senses of check (oneself), rescue, release— FROM ING complement, with the from sometimes omitted;
4. (iv) ensure—THAT complement.

We first look briefly at the meanings of verbs in sets (i) and (ii). Force can imply coercion, e.g. I forced the old lady to change her will in my favor by holding a gun at her head. Cause is used of indirect action, often premeditated, e.g. He caused Mary to crash by almost cutting through the brake cable and then sending her down the mountain road; it may also be used of natural phenomena, e.g. I believe that the underground nuclear tests caused that volcano to erupt. Make has a wider meaning, referring to anything the Causer does to bring something about directly (including when the subject of the complement clause is not acting volitionally), e.g. You made me burn the toast by distracting my attention, Lucy made Sandy wash up by saying he wouldn’t get any pocket money unless he did. (Note that force and cause are hyponyms of make, i.e. make could almost always be substituted for an occurrence of one of these verbs.) Drive, in its causative sense, implies continual pressure leading to some result, e.g. Mary’s nagging finally drove John to commit suicide. Tempt combines ‘make’ and ‘want’, e.g. The fact that gold bars were often left around the office tempted John to steal one is a near paraphrase of The fact that gold bars were often left around the office made John want to steal one.

The causative senses of get and have refer to the Causer bringing something about, usually by indirect means, e.g. She got Mary to wash up by saying how impressed John would be, She had Mary washing up when John arrived. Get refers to arranging for something to happen and have for arranging that it be happening, e.g. She had John and Mary talk about the crisis and then got Fred to join in. This semantic difference parallels the contrast between have and get as members of the OWN subtype, e.g. She had two cars and then got a third.

Turning now to set (ii), permit and allow may both be used impersonally; permit is often preferred where an official sanction is involved, e.g. The law doesn’t permit you to smoke in restaurants in Melbourne. The meaning range of allow includes reference to some concession, e.g. I was only allowed to drive the Mercedes on my birthday, or oversight, e.g. Those tenants allowed the garden to run to weed. In contrast, let focuses on the identity of the Causer (which is why let is seldom found in the passive), e.g. Mother doesn’t let me stay out late. Let also has a broad meaning, including ‘didn’t prevent/ forbid from doing’, e.g. She lets me do what I want, We let the cat go out at night if it wants to (contrast with We put the cat out at night). Permit and allow—but not let—may omit a complement clause verb with the meaning ‘get/receive/have’, e.g. Prisoners are only permitted (to receive) one visitor each month; She allowed John/herself (to have) just one chocolate.

All verbs in sets (i) and (ii) take a Modal (FOR) TO complement clause. However, the to must be omitted after make, let and have when these verbs are used in the active. Compare:

(1a) Mary forced/allowed/got John to mow the lawn

(1b) Mary made/had/let John mow the lawn

Make may freely be used in the passive and then to is generally included, e.g. John was made to mow the lawn. Let is seldom used in the passive (except as part of the idiom let go, and there is then no to, e.g. The rope was let go). The causative sense of have can never be passivized. Note that mow in (1b) is in base form (not a tense form, which would be mows or mowed), which is what it would be in a TO complement. It is because of this that we describe (1b) as an instance of a TO clause with the to omitted; this omission does have semantic explanation and semantic consequences.

A TO complement clause can have its predicate beginning with copula, imperfective or passive be. This be (and the preceding to, for verbs that take to) may optionally be omitted after get and make and must be omitted after have, e.g.

(2a) I got John to be interested in the puzzle

(2b) I got John interested in the puzzle

(3a) I made/*had John be interested in the puzzle

(3b) I made/had John interested in the puzzle

There is a semantic difference. The (a) sentences, with be, imply that I exerted some influence over John so that he exercised his mind to be interested, whereas the (b) sentences imply that I did something as a result of which John became interested, quite spontaneously. That is why have, which refers just to ‘something happening’, is restricted to the (b) construction.

The three varieties of be show different possibilities for omission with these verbs. Both passive and imperfective be must be omitted after have, may be after get, but are seldom or never omitted after make. With passive be we can have I got John to be examined by the doctor/I made John be examined by the doctor (did something so that he agreed to undergo the examination) and I got/had John examined by the doctor (arranged for it to happen) but not *I made John examined by the doctor since, when the predicate refers to an event, there would be a conflict between the meaning of make ‘I did something so that John did something’ and the semantic implication of be omission ‘something happens fairly spontaneously’.

A similar argument applies for imperfective be. There are I got John and Mary to be talking when Fred entered/I made John and Mary be talking when Fred entered (did something so that they agreed to talk) and I got/had John and Mary talking when Fred entered (arranged for it to happen, without them really intending it), but not *I made John and Mary talking when Fred entered, because of the same semantic conflict (when the predicate refers to an event).

With copula be—and a predicate referring to a state—all three verbs make the omission, e.g. He made/got/had Mary angry (before Fred arrived). The be can be retained, although it seldom is, with make and get. He got Mary to be angry/He made Mary be angry sound as if he persuaded her to pretend to be angry, whereas He got/made Mary angry implies that she entered that state quite spontaneously, as a natural reaction to whatever he did. A copula can of course also be followed by an NP. We get The Board made John President of the Company (it elected him), where be would not be appropriate since John is not exercising any volition; and Mary got him to be President, which does include to be since it describes Mary using some stratagem so that he would agree to accept the position.

Force—but not cause, make, let, etc.—occurs in another construction type, perhaps another kind of complement clause, with an -ing predicate preceded by into, e.g. I forced John into resigning. This implies a lengthy process before the result is achieved, as compared to I forced John to resign, which may describe a result achieved rather quickly. (The other verbs to take INTO ING all refer to some drawn-out activity, with negative overtones; e.g. bully, coax, pester.)

Verbs in set (iii) have meanings almost opposite to those of set (i). Spare and save indicate that the Causer obviates the need for someone to do a task that they should otherwise do, e.g. John saved Mary from (having) to paint the porch by doing it himself. Prevent and stop refer to the Causer making sure that someone does not do something that they may have wanted to do or tried to do; prevent often refers to indirect and stop to direct means, e.g. He prevented her (from) going by hiding her passport, and He stopped her from going by standing in the doorway and barring the way. (There is, however, a good deal of semantic overlap, and the two verbs are often used interchangeably.) There are also special senses of check (oneself), rescue and release that belong in set (iii), e.g. John checked himself from correcting Mary, Jane rescued Tony from having to give the speech by offering to do it herself.

All of these verbs take a FROM ING complement, like discourage, dissuade and forbid from the ORDER subtype of SPEAKING. Unlike the discourage group, prevent, spare and save may optionally omit the from in an active clause (it would seldom be omitted from a passive); there is a meaning difference.

There is another, related sense of stop which belongs to the BEGINNING type, e.g. She stopped swimming (i.e. she was swimming and then decided not to any more). This verb can be used causatively, and then shows some semantic and syntactic similarities to the SecondaryC verb stop. There are, however, crucial differences at both levels; compare:

(4a) John stopped Mary swimming (causative of Secondary-A verb stop)

(4b) John stopped Mary from swimming (Secondary-C verb stop)

Sentence (4a) is the causative of Mary stopped swimming. This sentence implies that Mary was swimming and that John made her desist; note that from cannot be included in (4a). Sentence (4b) implies that John did not allow her to swim, i.e. she didn’t enter the water. The from—which is optional after prevent, spare and save—would generally not be omitted from (4b), in order to distinguish the two constructions.

Set (iv), consisting just of ensure—which takes a THAT complement— may not refer to the Causer doing anything so that a certain state or event comes into being; the Causer might merely ascertain that something has been done (it does not matter by whom), e.g. John ensured that all the doors were locked before going away on holiday.