0 Causative Verbs

English has a few idioms for expressing causative actions which are similar to Hindi causative verbs, such as “to have X do Y”, “to get X to do Y”, etc. Examples I had him fix the chair. I got my eyeglasses repaired. I had my car cleaned. I got him to move the furniture. I got my house cleaned by the cleaners. Note that in each of the preceding examples, the subject’s participation is not direct, but indirect – the subject causes the action of the verb somehow (perhaps by asking or gesturing or some other solicitation), but does not directly perform the action of the verb. If the agent that performs the action of a causative verb in English is explicitly expressed, it is either marked with the preposition “by”, or else indicated syntactically, by placing the agent as the object of the verb “to have”, followed by the stem of the main verb, or by placing the agent as the object of the verb “to get”, followed by the infinitive of the main verb.

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