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4.2.3.6. He made me do it

 

Some sentences have a primary agent and a secondary agent. “John made Bill eat the sandwich.” Bill is the agent who eats the patient. But John is the agent who made the decision to have the patient get eaten, and who acted on that decision so as to get the patient eaten! John could have been less demanding, in which case we might say “John told Bill to eat the sandwich,” or even “John asked Bill to eat the sandwich,” which is the least demanding of all. Or John might have been even more demanding, in the face of Bill's resistance, in which case we might say “John forced Bill to eat the sandwich.”

Techniques: TPR is the best technique here. You need a co-learner, or at least a willing volunteer, and then your LRP can have you make that person do things. You can decide how you want to distinguish between the extremes of merely asking your friend to do the action and forcing him or her to do it.


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