What is?
The “passive causative” is nothing more than the use of causative verbs in the passive form. They are two complex grammatical structures, but don’t let that scare you. If you know how to use them separately, combining them is very simple.
If the passive changes the focus from the subject to the object and the causative indicates that someone asks or commissions someone to do something, the combination of both is, in essence, that someone commissions something to be done. But this looks better with an example:
Passive: the car was fixed by the mechanic. (The car was repaired by the mechanic).
Causative: he had the mechanic fix his car. (He had the mechanic repair the car.)
Causative passive: he had his car fixed by the mechanic. (He had the car repaired by the mechanic.)
Although this structure is totally artificial in Spanish, it is relatively common in formal English, albeit with certain changes.
How is it formed?
In the examples above, the ending effect of the sentences is very convoluted and unnatural except in certain contexts. This is because in the passive we do not usually indicate who performs the action, since we normally use it precisely to hide this information. Let’s see, then, how to form this structure in a more natural way.
Starting from this sentence:
The nurse took my temperature. — The nurse took my temperature.
We form the causative:
I had the nurse take my temperature. — I asked the nurse to take my temperature.
And now we just have to make the verb passive as usual, putting the object in the place of the subject:
I had my temperature taken. — I asked for my temperature to be taken.
As you can see, the word “nurse” has disappeared because it is more natural to omit that information. If you prefer not to skip it:
I had my temperature taken by the nurse. — I asked to have my temperature taken by the nurse.
As you can see, it is much less natural, but in English it is possible to form the sentence like this.
Also, in more informal contexts, “get” can be used:
I got my temperature taken. — I asked for my temperature to be taken.
