Sex and the City

Salve, leggevo con interesse nell’articolo ‘The sex and the city tour’ di giugno 2014 l’uso della costruzione soggetto + have + somebody + infinito senza to (we’ve all had somebody disappoint us). Potete spiegarmi bene come si traduce e quando si usa? sentivo parlare di causative have. Grazie tante. Armando

The easiest way to explain this is to say that “We’ve all had somebody disappoint us” is really an informal way of saying “We’ve all had the experience of somebody disappointing us” (“Abbiamo tutti avuto l’esperienza di qualcuno che ci ha delusi”).  It is not a complicated grammatical use of a past tense. Indeed it’s not really a very sophisticated construction, but it’s fine in conversation. Other examples could include “We’ve all had someone lie to us” (In other words “We’ve all had the experience of someone lying to us”; “Abbiamo tutti avuto l’esperienza di qualcuno che ci ha mentito”).