Causative in English
When it comes to the Causative In English, or rather, when we want to express that we “cause something to happen” we use what’s called “the causative”. There are 2 ways we can use the causative in English, that is, with either “have” or “get”. Using the causative comes in super handy!
The first way, and the more formal way of using the causative is with the main auxiliary verb “to have”. Also, feel free to use any verbal form, be it the present simple, the future simple, present continuous etc., it doesn’t matter, because you’re still using the causative.
We use the following rule:
Have + object + verb
- My mum had me make the table > “Mum” is the person who “caused” the action of “make the table” (here we used the past simple, “had”). However, it is “me” or the person who is speaking who does the action.
- David is having my brother clean the plates > “David” is the person who is causing his brother to do the action of “clean the plates”. So, David’s “brother” does the action, but David is the person who causes the action, hence, the use of the causative. Here, we used the causative in the present continuous “is having my brother clean”.
- Our boss will have us check all the requests > “Our boss” is the person who causes the action of “check all the requests” to happen, but the people directly doing the action are “us”. In this case, we used the future simple.
- We have our son do his homework every evening > “We” are those who cause their “son” to do the action of “his homework”. Here, we also made use of the present simple.
So, these were all examples using the causative with the main auxiliary verb “have”. It should be noted, this way with “have” is a little more formal (but not overly formal at all!). Now, let’s use the same examples as before, but this time we will use “get”. So, we can also use “get” to express the causative which has the same meaning, only this way, it is a little less formal than with “have”.
The construction is the following:
Get + object + to + verb
- My mum got me to make the table. > Importantly, notice that when we use “get” to make the causative, we need to use “to” before the verb.
- David is getting my brother to clean the plates > Here, we are using the present continuous with “is getting” to form a more informal causative with “get”.
- Our boss will get us to check all the requests > So, same as before, “get” is used here to express a more informal version of the causative than with “have”.
- We get our son to do his homework > Just like before, we can use the present simple, only this time with “get” and not “have”.
So, these latest examples are making use of the causative with the main auxiliary verb “get”, which is a little less formal than with “have”.