make creative juices flowing

@deepcosmos posted:

• He teaches his students in his ways to make creative juices flowing.

For the usage ’flowing’ in above sentence I have following questions;

1. Since the causative ‘make’ doesn’t allow participle form after its object, the ‘make’ should, I think, be substituted with ‘get’.

Hi, Deepcosmos—That's exactly right. I don't know where you have taken the example sentence from, but surely the intended meaning of the infinitival clause is that he aims to cause his students' creative energy to flow:

• He teaches his students in his ways to get their creative juices flowing.

@deepcosmos posted:

2. By the way, if we view above sentence in another point that the ‘flowing’ might be an adjective originated from verb ‘flow’ and this sentence pattern is the same as “make someone happy”, could this sentence with ‘make’ itself be grammatical?

Yes, if we imagine that "flowing" is an adjective, then the sentence is as grammatical as any other sentence with the complementation pattern "make NP AdjP."

However, the verbal force of "flowing" is too strong in that position to take such an alternative analysis seriously. It's highly unlikely that any native speaker would read the sentence that way or find it grammatical at all.

@David, Moderator posted:

Hi, Deepcosmos—That's exactly right. I don't know where you have taken the example sentence from, but surely the intended meaning of the infinitival clause is that he aims to cause his students' creative energy to flow:

• He teaches his students in his ways to get their creative juices flowing.

Yes, if we imagine that "flowing" is an adjective, then the sentence is as grammatical as any other sentence with the complementation pattern "make NP AdjP."

However, the verbal force of "flowing" is too strong in that position to take such an alternative analysis seriously. It's highly unlikely that any native speaker would read the sentence that way or find it grammatical at all.

Hi, David - sincerely appreciate your usual, clear clarifications!!

Thanks and Best RGDS,