He made his car repaired.

[wotcha]

As we know some causative verbs such as 'have' and 'get' can have past participles as objective complements.

However, one of my grammar books says, 'make' cannot have past participle as an objective complement.

Is it true?


Actually I've taught my students that not only 'have' and 'get' but also 'make'

agrees with past participle complements, and give them the below sentence.


'He made his car repaired'


Is the above sentence grammatical?

Will it be safe teaching my students that we can use past participles

as objective complement for 'have, get' and 'make'?

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

'He made his car repaired'

Is the above sentence grammatical?

It sounds completely wrong to me.

I would have said, 'He had his car repaired.'

 

[BobK]

As we know some causative verbs such as 'have' and 'get' can have past participles as objective complements.

However, one of my grammar books says, 'make' cannot have past participle as an objective complement.

Is it true?


Actually I've taught my students that not only 'have' and 'get' but also 'make'

agrees with past participle complements, and give them the below sentence.


'He made his car repaired'


Is the above sentence grammatical?

Will it be safe teaching my students that we can use past participles

as objective complement for 'have, get' and 'make'?

No. But you can use 'make + <adjective>' ( as in 'make safe/good/happier...) so sometimes a past participle, when used adjectivally, may give the impression that the have/get rule can be extended in this way. (I can't think of a convincing example, but I think it may be possible)

b

 

[SoothingDave]

NOT A TEACHER



It sounds completely wrong to me.

I would have said, 'He had his car repaired.'

Or "he repaired his car." It depends on what the OP is trying to say.

 

[wotcha]

Thank you so much! Believe it or not, most of Korean ESL teachers teach

students that 'make' can have past participle complement.

 

[Academic Writing]

agree with Chicken Sandwich that I would say "He had his car repaired." I can only speak to northeast U.S. English for sure but "made" is not correct there.

You can use have and get in the causative structures you're asking about. I'm having a difficult time thinking of an example with "make." I won't say 100% that it's impossible (although I'd like to haha), but anything that comes to mind sounds strange to me.

 

[tzfujimino]

Thank you so much! Believe it or not, most of Korean ESL teachers teach

students that 'make' can have past participle complement.

Hello, wotcha.:-D
I can think of two examples:

I've managed to make myself understood.
I had to shout to make myself heard.

I believe those words in bold are past participles and that they are both objective complements.

 

[BobK]

:up: Those are thought-provoking examples, but you can't generalize from them a 'rule' that *'make can take an object complement'. The reflexive pronoun is figurative: myself = 'my argument/opinion/contention...'; or myself = 'my voice/statement/utterance...'. Whenever you see a reflexive pronoun you can expect one of these exceptions. If you had something physically done to you ('yourself' - but not figurative) you couldn't use 'make': *'I made myself tattooed' is wrong; you have yourself tattooed.

But good catch! ;-)

b

 

[wotcha]

I love you guys ~ :up: