Re: Re[2]: [tied] Almost perfect [was: verb agreement in one stage

From: Andy Howey
Message: 26392
Date: 2003-10-12

Hi, Brian:
 
Without further context, the way I interpret #2 is causative -- "he" committed an offence that warranted the penalty of beheading, thus, by his actions, he caused his head to be chopped off.
 
Andy Howey

"Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
At 6:27:46 AM on Sunday, October 12, 2003, Piotr Gasiorowski
wrote:

> 12-10-03 03:39, Ray wrote:
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
>> <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>>> Consider the following examples:

>>>      (1) My wife wants to have me killed.
>>>      (2) He had his head cut off.
>>>      (3) We had the fire extinguished before the firemen arrived.

>> I think the above sentences have a causative meaning.

> Sentence (1) is causative; (2) is not causative but
> experiential (assuming that the poor devil didn't arrange
> his own decapitation, in which case it would be
> causative-reflexive);

(2) has three possible meanings.  The likeliest are the
experiential meaning and a causative meaning in which 'He'
and 'him' refer to different people; both are plausible, and
without context the sentence is genuinely ambiguous.  The
third, the causative-reflexive sense, is indeed unlikely,
both on grounds of sense and because one would probably say
'had his own head cut off'.

Brian




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