In which the WIP makes her cat-vacuum

[zeborah]

"What makes a man betray his own family?"

"The same thing that makes him kill a friend. Or let him kill himself."

So this scene is slightly less stuck than the previous 2023 scenes(*) but it's still the kind of thing where I

• write a sentence,
• check all my rss feeds,
• write three sentences,
• check my feeds,
• delete four sentences,
• check my feeds,
• replace them with four sentences and, in an absolute brainwave, a fifth;
• check my feeds,
• decide these sentences might actually stay,
• check my feeds,
• peer at my sentences for a long time,
• and start contemplating causative modal verbs, how these are (in various languages) lexically or grammatically encoded, and what categories there are other than "make someone do something" and "let someone do something".

I thought of "force" but I think that's just a (more intense) synonym of "make".

Irina enabled this cat-vacuuming of mine by suggesting:

• get smn to do smthg,
• take care that smn does smthg,
• have smn do smthg.

Thinking more. What I'm talking about are verbs that describe the subject's part in an action that is actually being performed by someone else. Which also suggests to me maybe help someone do something, and sort-of-negatives like hinder or stop someone doing something.

Which gives me a draft classification of:

• I make them do it (synonyms include force) - this is a causative, pure and simple. I want it to happen, they probably don't, but because of me it happens anyway.
• I have them do it - it's my idea and I've got the authority to be still primarily responsible but they could probably still refuse. (This should probably be collapsed into either "make" above or "get" below, depending on their willingness. Irina had a different definition than mine but I don't think it changes my schema? I'm thinking of synonyms like order.)
• I get them to do it (synonyms include ask, convince) - it's my idea but they end up doing it more or less willingly.
• I take care that they do it (synonyms include make sure) - they might come up with the idea and do it all by themselves - but if they don't I'll use one of the other options above.
• I help them do it (synonyms include enable) - it's their action, but I'm active in providing conditions to cause it to succeed.
• I let them do it (synonyms include allow) - it's their action, I'm not actively helping, but I'm not actively hindering either.
• I hinder their action (cf "help") (can this take a verb as complement? "hinder them from doing it" sounds odd to me) - it's their action, I take action against it but I may not succeed in stopping it.
• I forbid them to do it (cf "get" above) - their idea, I've got authority that may stop them but they could defy me.
• I stop them from doing it (cf "make") - it's their idea and action, I take action against it and succeed in stopping it.

That feels fairly comprehensive and really I should see if I can add a 6th sentence to this scene before bedtime, but have I missed out anything really obvious?

(*) Actually I can count that, and it turns out to be a mere 162.

Comments

[coraa]

Do you want to include verbs that focus more on intent than on whether the action is completed or completeable? What occurred to me, looking at this, is the difference between "request" and "get/convince" (to me, the difference is that if you get or convince someone to do it, you have asked them and been successful in the asking, whereas requesting doesn't imply success), and the difference between "forbid" and "hinder" (same thing, but in the other direction; if my dad forbade me to go out after midnight, that didn't mean that he hindered me in a material way).

But that may be a slightly different axis than what you're exploring here.