"The good parents have their kids study French" "You're not going to make him eat those veggies"
Is that simply the infinitive? Or is it imperative? Or subjunctive? I've been seeing this form around but I can't quite peg the tense/mood.
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1I don't know about " to be" but whole sentence pattern is called as the causative form. – Mrt Feb 18 '15 at 19:24
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1Infinitive. Have him (to) be here on time – WS2 Feb 18 '15 at 20:55
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It's the infinitive. It has no tense/mood. The grammatical form, i.e. tense/mood/person/number, is assumed by the main verb.
The good parents have their kids study French.
The good parents would have their kids study French if they had the money. (conditional)
I had my kids study French. (past)
Have your kids study French! (imperative)
Armen Ծիրունյան
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1Have
XInfinVPis one of several special constructions with auxiliary have. One is a causative construction: I had them rotate my tires when they changed my oil means I caused the rotation by telling them what to do. The other is an adversative construction: I had somebody slash my tires when I parked in the alley means that the tire-slashing happened to me, not that I caused it. These both occur in the passive: I had my tires rotated; I had my tires slashed. – John Lawler Feb 18 '15 at 21:40 -
@JohnLawler: So, are you saying that because it can occur in the passive, it is not the infinitive? – Armen Ծիրունյան Feb 18 '15 at 21:43
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No, there is a missing infinitive be in the passive; that's one of the funny things about these particular idioms, and how one can tell they're idioms. – John Lawler Feb 18 '15 at 22:03