Hi!
First of all I would like to state that I am relieved to find one such resource on the net. During my teaching career I have come across several phenomena that despite my knowing the correct form I simply cannot explain why this is the case.
One such example is the following phrase: "Yesterday we had an accident happen at work". I always tell students to learn this expression as is, never providing a justification of why they should use it.
The question is what is this have + noun + infinitive form ? My guess is that it might have something to do with some iterations of the causative form, as in make/have sb do sth but I cannot classify it as an already known grammatical phenomenon for sure.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
George
what the *(%&*(%( is "have something happen"?
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JuanTwoThree
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You're right. Though I'm very surprised that you can't find it documented. It's usually mentioned alongside causative "have/get something done" :
"If the verb refers to something negative or unwanted, it has the same meaning as a passive sentence:
d. Jim had his car stolen last night. (= Jim's car was stolen)
e. They had their roof blown off in the storm. (= Their roof was blown off in the storm)"
from http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/Pass3.cfm.
It's in Murphy's English Grammar in Use and must be in Swan too.
"If the verb refers to something negative or unwanted, it has the same meaning as a passive sentence:
d. Jim had his car stolen last night. (= Jim's car was stolen)
e. They had their roof blown off in the storm. (= Their roof was blown off in the storm)"
from http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/Pass3.cfm.
It's in Murphy's English Grammar in Use and must be in Swan too.
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fluffyhamster
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You can also often find a fair bit of information in learner dictionaries about the stuff JTT is referring to.
I'd be tempted to rephrase "We had an accident happen at work yesterday" simply to "We had an accident at work yesterday", or "There was an accident at work yesterday". The extra "happen" serves no useful function and presumably only occured because the speaker hadn't quite settled upon an appropriate wording or was trying to impress.
Either way, it sounds odd, and is hardly the sort of thing that learners should be committing to memory (in my humble opinion) - as opposed to, say, "We had the builders come and/to put in a new doorway".
I'd be tempted to rephrase "We had an accident happen at work yesterday" simply to "We had an accident at work yesterday", or "There was an accident at work yesterday". The extra "happen" serves no useful function and presumably only occured because the speaker hadn't quite settled upon an appropriate wording or was trying to impress.
Either way, it sounds odd, and is hardly the sort of thing that learners should be committing to memory (in my humble opinion) - as opposed to, say, "We had the builders come and/to put in a new doorway".
We had an accident at work yesterday = an accident happened to us i.e we were directly affected by the accident
We had an accident happen at work yesterday = an accident took place at work, but did not affect us directly
The "extra happen" does indeed serve a purpose, namely that of dissociating us from the accident.
Harzer
We had an accident happen at work yesterday = an accident took place at work, but did not affect us directly
The "extra happen" does indeed serve a purpose, namely that of dissociating us from the accident.
Harzer
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JuanTwoThree
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Actually, looking more closely, I can only find "have them bring it" and "have it brought" in the books I have to hand. But it's mentioned that "have" needn't mean "arrange for it to be" and "You wouldn't want to have something happen to your children" is the same, unless of course it's said by my friend Knuckles .
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Andrew Patterson
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GD, Although I would be more likely to phrase it the way Fluffy Hamster did, if "Yesterday we had an accident happen at work" means what I think it does, then it would be an example of middle voice.
Middle voice is when you have a passive action using active grammar, for example, "the cake cooked in the oven." "Cooked" is an active verb with a passive meaning.
We could say, "Leave the cake to cook in the oven," and "to cook is still middle voice.
"Make" together its evil sibling "let" and when it feels like it "help" are followed by the object and bare infinitive. "Have" can sometimes do this and its meaning is usually causitive, but if you insist the grammar is correct, "happen" is in the middle voice here.
As with many passive or perhaps here pseudo-passive constructions, the speaker may be trying to avoid or spread blame.
Middle voice is when you have a passive action using active grammar, for example, "the cake cooked in the oven." "Cooked" is an active verb with a passive meaning.
We could say, "Leave the cake to cook in the oven," and "to cook is still middle voice.
"Make" together its evil sibling "let" and when it feels like it "help" are followed by the object and bare infinitive. "Have" can sometimes do this and its meaning is usually causitive, but if you insist the grammar is correct, "happen" is in the middle voice here.
As with many passive or perhaps here pseudo-passive constructions, the speaker may be trying to avoid or spread blame.
Last edited by Andrew Patterson on Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JuanTwoThree
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Interesting. Do I remember active middle and passive from Greek? And is it something like ergative?
I was just thinking to myself that "we had the roof blow off our house" and "we had the roof blown off our house" are the same. Because, if I've got the jargon right, blow is ergative, like cook, sell: "My book is selling well" and play: "violins are playing" and many others.
What I like about them is that you'll see new ones every day and some'll make you cringe, for no reason . I'll go along with "Rioja drinks more easily with food" but not "Spaghetti eats better with Chianti". No problems with " This shirt irons easily" but I baulk at "His book is printing next week".
Maybe with these mostly domestic verbs people got bored with making passives. Happen is never passive though so it's different. Hmmmm.
I was just thinking to myself that "we had the roof blow off our house" and "we had the roof blown off our house" are the same. Because, if I've got the jargon right, blow is ergative, like cook, sell: "My book is selling well" and play: "violins are playing" and many others.
What I like about them is that you'll see new ones every day and some'll make you cringe, for no reason . I'll go along with "Rioja drinks more easily with food" but not "Spaghetti eats better with Chianti". No problems with " This shirt irons easily" but I baulk at "His book is printing next week".
Maybe with these mostly domestic verbs people got bored with making passives. Happen is never passive though so it's different. Hmmmm.
Hi all!
First of all thanks for your feedback.
Actually for some reason I came up with an answer resembling that of Andrew Patterson's and JuanTwoThree's right after I read the latter's first post. I had the intention of replying back then but I didn't have enough time.
The confusion stems from the fact that all student grammar books I have used in class explain the causative form as follows. They refer to the have/get something done form, which is presented as a way to express that somebody else did something for me, and the make/have somebody do something or get somebody to do something form which is presented as a way to suggest that the action the (full) infinitive describes is attributed to a person other than the subject of the verbs make / have or get.
So students learn that when they encounter something that can be perceived as "somebody" then they put what follows in the bare or full infinitive form, and when they come across something that they perceive as "something" then they put the verb in the past participle.
This standardisation (or rule of thumb as one might put it) works quite well, except for the cases where the verb has a very "passive meaning" of its own. this includes verbs such as happen, disappear, occur etc.
The "middle voice" is something I have never had to deal with in English, but due to my being Greek I am aware of (the middle voice is most prevalent in ancient Greek if I'm not mistaken, plus it has a distinct grammatical form as well, though it's been years since I last dealt with this).
This of course is very easy to understand if you try to transform "we had an accident happen at work" into "an accident happened at work". One would never say "an accident was happened at work" for it sounds stupid since happen already bears a passive meaning.
However, I seem to come at a dead-end when it comes to explaining "eggs are difficult to carry" instead of "eggs are difficult to be carried". What is the subject of "carry"? Can this be considered some form of impersonal syntax? I mean I do understand that "eggs are difficult to be carried" suggests that eggs carry themselves which is, again, a stupid argument but I can't help but hope that no student will ever have a question on that. Any ideas?
Cheers
gd
P.S.
I am glad you raise the issue of the necessity for all this in the classroom (and in the process of learning EFL as well). However, I do have to teach this because it is needed in examinations such as the Michigan ECPE (take a look at my post in the material writting forum if you are not familiar with this test) . English as a foreign language is a bit misunderstood in my country by both teachers and students alike, since it is more of an industry for rendering people capable of receiving English language certificates instead of a process through which one comes to actually learning a foreign language along with everything this entails (which unfortunately I’m a victim of as well --- getting used to a different way of thinking, be initiated into other "genres" of humour, being capable of receiving foreign culture items etc, in other words, get educated)
First of all thanks for your feedback.
Actually for some reason I came up with an answer resembling that of Andrew Patterson's and JuanTwoThree's right after I read the latter's first post. I had the intention of replying back then but I didn't have enough time.
The confusion stems from the fact that all student grammar books I have used in class explain the causative form as follows. They refer to the have/get something done form, which is presented as a way to express that somebody else did something for me, and the make/have somebody do something or get somebody to do something form which is presented as a way to suggest that the action the (full) infinitive describes is attributed to a person other than the subject of the verbs make / have or get.
So students learn that when they encounter something that can be perceived as "somebody" then they put what follows in the bare or full infinitive form, and when they come across something that they perceive as "something" then they put the verb in the past participle.
This standardisation (or rule of thumb as one might put it) works quite well, except for the cases where the verb has a very "passive meaning" of its own. this includes verbs such as happen, disappear, occur etc.
The "middle voice" is something I have never had to deal with in English, but due to my being Greek I am aware of (the middle voice is most prevalent in ancient Greek if I'm not mistaken, plus it has a distinct grammatical form as well, though it's been years since I last dealt with this).
This of course is very easy to understand if you try to transform "we had an accident happen at work" into "an accident happened at work". One would never say "an accident was happened at work" for it sounds stupid since happen already bears a passive meaning.
However, I seem to come at a dead-end when it comes to explaining "eggs are difficult to carry" instead of "eggs are difficult to be carried". What is the subject of "carry"? Can this be considered some form of impersonal syntax? I mean I do understand that "eggs are difficult to be carried" suggests that eggs carry themselves which is, again, a stupid argument but I can't help but hope that no student will ever have a question on that. Any ideas?
Cheers
gd
P.S.
I am glad you raise the issue of the necessity for all this in the classroom (and in the process of learning EFL as well). However, I do have to teach this because it is needed in examinations such as the Michigan ECPE (take a look at my post in the material writting forum if you are not familiar with this test) . English as a foreign language is a bit misunderstood in my country by both teachers and students alike, since it is more of an industry for rendering people capable of receiving English language certificates instead of a process through which one comes to actually learning a foreign language along with everything this entails (which unfortunately I’m a victim of as well --- getting used to a different way of thinking, be initiated into other "genres" of humour, being capable of receiving foreign culture items etc, in other words, get educated)
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fluffyhamster
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Sorry for posting such short, crap answers but I have less time now than before to read up on things and "help" people. 
Regarding "Eggs are difficult to carry", I guess you will need to consider the whole area of "Raising" (although personally I think it is quite a dry area and only of interests to linguists who like to play games with usual, "clear" word orders e.g. people into TG/UG/Chomsky generally)
It is not always mentioned in teaching materials or the more pedagogical grammars, so you'll need to go for a more comprehensive grammar such as the Longman (Student) Grammar of Spoken and Written English, or the always interesting if not dependable The Grammar Book; then again, you might feel you need to go the whole hog and get something like Crystal or Trask's dictionaries (of linguistics, and grammatical terms, respectively). I am not sure if Chalker deals with this in her Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, but that is a great book (which I unfortunately do not have with me here in Japan).
Anyway, good luck, and it is a discussion that I hope I can take part in more fully, if and when I get a chance to bone up on stuff.
Regarding "Eggs are difficult to carry", I guess you will need to consider the whole area of "Raising" (although personally I think it is quite a dry area and only of interests to linguists who like to play games with usual, "clear" word orders e.g. people into TG/UG/Chomsky generally)
It is not always mentioned in teaching materials or the more pedagogical grammars, so you'll need to go for a more comprehensive grammar such as the Longman (Student) Grammar of Spoken and Written English, or the always interesting if not dependable The Grammar Book; then again, you might feel you need to go the whole hog and get something like Crystal or Trask's dictionaries (of linguistics, and grammatical terms, respectively). I am not sure if Chalker deals with this in her Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, but that is a great book (which I unfortunately do not have with me here in Japan).
Anyway, good luck, and it is a discussion that I hope I can take part in more fully, if and when I get a chance to bone up on stuff.
does it have anything to do with this: (?)
i really don't know. In greece you are qualified as an english language teacher (only in the private domain however) simply by holding a Common European Framework Level 5 certificate such as the Cambridge CPE or the Michigan ECPE, so I haven't actually studied english at uni which means I have had no chance to deal with linguistics and the like. Unfortunately.
Anyway this is getting a lot more interesting than I originally thought
BTW the only "sophisticated" book I have on English Grammar is Parrott's Grammar for English Language Teachers by Cambridge University Press where I was unable to find any reference to this "raising" stuff (unless the "if it ain't in the index then you can't find it" rule doesn't hold true).
I'll try to get hold of one of your recommended books if I ever find the time...
and more specifically the last sentence?Section 6.7 also gives several tests for distinguishing between them:
* Subject Expressions can appear as the subject (i.e., the NP after the verb) with raising verbs, but not with control verbs. (105-107),(110)
* Verbal adjuncts can appear after the V-NP in control verbs, but not raising verbs. (116)
* The V-NP sequence can prepose with control verbs, but not raising verbs (118-119).
* With raising verbs, you can make the verb in the complement clause passive without changing the meaning. With control verbs, doing so changes the meaning. (122-123).
i really don't know. In greece you are qualified as an english language teacher (only in the private domain however) simply by holding a Common European Framework Level 5 certificate such as the Cambridge CPE or the Michigan ECPE, so I haven't actually studied english at uni which means I have had no chance to deal with linguistics and the like. Unfortunately.
Anyway this is getting a lot more interesting than I originally thought
BTW the only "sophisticated" book I have on English Grammar is Parrott's Grammar for English Language Teachers by Cambridge University Press where I was unable to find any reference to this "raising" stuff (unless the "if it ain't in the index then you can't find it" rule doesn't hold true).
I'll try to get hold of one of your recommended books if I ever find the time...
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fluffyhamster
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Yup, you seem to have found a "beauty" there, I told you it was an "interesting" area, didn't I! 
BTW Parrott's is an excellent book: although you could probably do with getting a reference grammar on top of that, he addresses pretty much everything a student and therefore a teacher needs to know (in a rough but clear outline); certainly, a discussion of "raising" over and above "natural" subjects and what usually follows them would not be as obviously useful.
Some people may decry me for saying this, but if a structure is difficult for students (even one as useful as "These eggs are difficult to carry"), then I get them to express the proposition differently e.g. "I can't carry these, I need a carton or bag or something, I'm going to drop or break some...", why make the students neurotic about just the one structure? (That being said, total avoidance might create problems - errors of avoidance, circumlocution etc - but I guess the students will get enough exposure to the item receptively to eventually understamd it if not start using it spontaneously themselves).
Wasn't it "John is easy to please" (vs. "John is eager to please") that started this all off? Damn that naughty Chomsky. And what's wrong with "John's easy/cool/laidback; John won't care/mind/be bothered"?
BTW Parrott's is an excellent book: although you could probably do with getting a reference grammar on top of that, he addresses pretty much everything a student and therefore a teacher needs to know (in a rough but clear outline); certainly, a discussion of "raising" over and above "natural" subjects and what usually follows them would not be as obviously useful.
Some people may decry me for saying this, but if a structure is difficult for students (even one as useful as "These eggs are difficult to carry"), then I get them to express the proposition differently e.g. "I can't carry these, I need a carton or bag or something, I'm going to drop or break some...", why make the students neurotic about just the one structure? (That being said, total avoidance might create problems - errors of avoidance, circumlocution etc - but I guess the students will get enough exposure to the item receptively to eventually understamd it if not start using it spontaneously themselves).
Wasn't it "John is easy to please" (vs. "John is eager to please") that started this all off? Damn that naughty Chomsky. And what's wrong with "John's easy/cool/laidback; John won't care/mind/be bothered"?
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fluffyhamster
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I just wanted to say, I wasn't happy with Harzer's take on the meaning (and use) of "happen" here.Harzer wrote:We had an accident at work yesterday = an accident happened to us i.e we were directly affected by the accident
We had an accident happen at work yesterday = an accident took place at work, but did not affect us directly
The "extra happen" does indeed serve a purpose, namely that of dissociating us from the accident.
Harzer
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Stephen Jones
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fluffyhamster
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