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Native speakers of English language, What meaning (s) do you infer from the following sentence?

Bob had his child abducted.

Does it mean:

  1. Bob did experience the abduction of his child.
  2. Bob paid someone to abduct his (Bob's) child.
  3. Any other meaning?
John Lawler
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    Is 'her' in the sample sentence intentional or a mistake? – KillingTime Dec 19 '20 at 14:40
  • Or possibly: Bob paid somebody to abduct another person's child. – Peter Shor Dec 19 '20 at 15:05
  • @KillingTime, that was typo. –  Dec 19 '20 at 15:10
  • @PeterShor that requires the introduction of another person out of this sample sentence. Let's restrict ourselves to just this sentence. –  Dec 19 '20 at 15:11
  • No, actually, it doesn't. One can say that Bob's child is actually the kidnapping victim whom he had abducted without detailing the abductor. But that would not be the natural reading of the sentence. I would assume it meant 2 unless more data were introduced. – Mary Dec 19 '20 at 16:16
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    Does this answer your question? Causative construction // The 'have something done' construction is ambiguous, as pointed out by no less than Chomsky in 1965. 'I had a book stolen' has the senses 'Someone stole a book from me' ('I' am the 'unbeneficiary') and 'I got someone to steal a book for me' ('I' am the causative / indirect agent). Pragmatics and especially context usually help disambiguate, but here neither reading sounds very natural. But the causative reading is hopefully contextually the less likely. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 19 '20 at 16:35
  • I modified the example sentences to remove some red herrings. Assuming Bob and his are coreferential, it can mean (1) or (2), as Edwin points out. It can also mean anything the speaker or listener think it might mean. That's not really under our control. And if you're going to say sentences like these, there will be many ambiguities. – John Lawler Dec 19 '20 at 17:36
  • It is irreducibly ambiguous unless set in informative context. – Anton Dec 19 '20 at 19:05
  • A native speaker would say “Bob’s child was abducted.” No need for this mess. – Xanne Dec 19 '20 at 22:17

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