Questions about causative constructions

Question

If I wanted to say "The teacher who made the kids write a letter to their friend in the hospital", how should I write it?

Are 2 にs ok in the same sentence?
Would 病院にいる友達に子供に手紙を書かせた先生。be acceptable?

If there are no particles, how should I interpret a causative like 書かせた人

Would it be

The person who made someone else write
The person who was made to write by someone

病院にいる友達への手紙を子供に書かせた先生。 — Second Person Shooter, Jun 15 '16 at 13:29
「子供に、入院してる友達**宛てに**手紙を書かせた…」でもいいかと。 — Chocolate, Jun 15 '16 at 22:55

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

3

This sentence would be at least understandable if you change the word order and write like this:

子供に病院にいる友達に手紙を書かせた先生

It's because this sentence will be parsed like this (with "nesting"):

[子供に[病院にいる友達に手紙を書か]せた]先生

The "病院にいる友達に手紙を書く" part should be written as one verbal phrase because that's the action the child has to take.

This question is more or less similar: Multiple "wo"s in a sentence?

That said, it would be much better if you can avoid multiple に's like this. Multiple に both marking a person is hard for even native speakers to understand. The simplest way to fix this is using へ instead.

子供に病院にいる友達へ手紙を書かせた先生

子供に病院にいる友達への手紙を書かせた先生

病院にいる友達への手紙を子供に書かせた先生
_{(This is okay, as @優しいエイリアン suggested, because への modifies 手紙, and 病院にいる友達への手紙 is one noun phrase)}

[*] 病院にいる友達へ手紙を子供に書かせた先生 (wrong)
_{(Can you see why this is wrong? へ modifies the verb 書く. The "nest" structure will be broken if you write like this)}

And I see nothing wrong with sentences like this:

子供に夜にお菓子を食べさせるのは良くない。

夜に子供にお菓子を食べさせるのは良くない。

夜にお菓子を子供に食べさせるのは良くない。
_{(uncommon word order, but perfectly makes sense)}

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:43

Community

1

answered Jun 15 '16 at 14:30

naruto

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I see, sometimes though I find some sentences where the particle does not refer to the first verb after it. "病院にいる友達へ手紙を子供に書かせた先生 " I found a sentence similar to this once, that is why I used it an example. Thanks. Anyway for the second part of the question could you help me out? – Splikie Jun 15 '16 at 14:47
If there are no particles how should i interpret a causative like this 書かせた人 The person who made someone else write The person who was made to write by somoene" – Splikie Jun 15 '16 at 14:50
書かせた人 always means "person who made (someone) write", and 書かされた人 is "person who was made to write". – naruto Jun 15 '16 at 14:50
僕が書かせた人 means:"The man who I forced to write something" ? – Splikie Jun 15 '16 at 14:51
1

Yes.................................. – Second Person Shooter Jun 15 '16 at 14:52
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@Splikie: And 僕に書かせられた人 is the man who was forced by me to write . – Second Person Shooter Jun 15 '16 at 14:57

Questions about causative constructions

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