International Journal of Linguistics & Communication

Causative Use of ‘Have’ in English and its Equivalents in Macedonian
MA Marija Stevkovska

Abstract
“Causation is a relation between two events: a causing event and a caused event” (Shibatani, 1976:78). The English construction causative use of ‘have’ has no corresponding verb form in Macedonian. Using the method of contrastive analysis (CA) only translation equivalents can be analyzed. The zero relation between causative ‘have’ and its Macedonian equivalents represents a major difference between the two languages. The target construction is translated using morphological, lexical or syntactic means. The reasons for the non-existence of such a construction in Macedonian are primarily social and pragmatic. Due to their historical background and poor living conditions in the past most people would rather do or repair things themselves rather than have someone else do that for them. This is mirrored in the language through the use of active voice, a very limited usage of passive or passive-like constructions and invariable usage of animate subjects in sentence-initial position.

Full Text: PDF