Vocabulary
magpabasa
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to have someone read something
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magpaalis
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to have someone make someone leave
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paalisin
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to have someone make someone leave
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pabasahin
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to have someone read something
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panatilihin
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to have someone maintain something
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magpalinis
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to have someone clean something
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magpahapunan
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to have someone feed someone dinner
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pakainin
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to have someone eat something
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pabilihin
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to have someone buy something
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magpalutó
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to have someone cook something
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pulis
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police
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Grammar
There are actually 6 different verb types that add the nuance “to have someone do something”, but some are a bit rare so we’ll just cover two of the most frequently used.
Magpa-verb usage
To perform an AF action
To add the nuance of “to have someone do”
Ex: Magpapabasa ako ng libro sa kanya.
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= I’ll have her read a book.
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Ex: Nagpaalis siya ng lalaki sa mga pulis.
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= He had the police make a man leave.
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Magpa-verb formation
To form the infinitive, add magpa before the root:
Ex: basa
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=> magpabasa
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Ex: alis
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=> magpaalis
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Magpa-verb aspect
Magpa verbs are conjugated as shown. Notice that the pa of magpa gets repeated in incompleted and contemplated aspects.
Ex: magpabasa
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=> nagpabasa, nagpapabasa, magpapabasa
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Ex: magpaalis
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=> nagpaalis, nagpapaalis, magpapaalis
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Pa -in verb usage
To perform an OF action
To add the nuance of “to have someone do”
Generally used with roots that take um
Ex: Pinaalis niya ang lalaki sa mga pulis.
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= He had the police make the man leave.
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Ex: Pababasahin ko ang libro sa kanya.
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= I’ll have her read the book.
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Pa -in verb formation
To form the infinitive, add pa before and in after the root (hin if it ends in a vowel – see in-verbs for other spelling exceptions):
Ex: alis
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=> paalisin
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Ex: basa
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=> pabasahin
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Pa -in verb aspect
Completed aspect: pina + root
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= pinaalis/pinabasa
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Incompleted aspect: pina + first syllable of root + root
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= pinaaalis/pinababasa
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Contemplated aspect: pa + first syllable of root + root + in/hin
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= paaalisin/pababasahin
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Two actor sentences can be tricky
The “full” form of these sentences actually has two actors. Lets look at:
Ex: Magpapabasa ako ng libro sa kaniya.
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= I’ll have her read a book.
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In the above example, ako is the actor, and kanya is the indirect actor (IA). Word order here is <verb, actor, object, IA>. There are a couple things I found to be tricky when learning these. Like most other sentence forms you’ve seen before, these sentences aren’t always full. For example:
Ex: Magpapabasa ako sa kanya.
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= I’ll have her read (something unspecified – the Object is omitted).
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Ex: Magpapabasa ako ng libro.
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= I’ll have a book read (by someone unspecified – the IA is omitted).
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But you can’t drop the actor in magpa sentences because AF sentences need to have an actor. (Similarly, you can’t drop the object in pa -in sentences because OF sentences need to have an object.)
XXX: Magpapabasa ng libro sa kanya.
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= not a valid sentence
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That was the first thing I found to be tricky. The next is that it was sometimes difficult to tell what the actual object was. For example:
Ex: Nagpaalis siya ng lalaki.
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= He had the man leave.
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The man is actually the object here. It’s a bit rare to have the person be the object, so I kept thinking he was an IA that needed to act on an object and it confused me. Also:
Ex: Magpapabasa ako sa kanya.
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= I’ll have her read.
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In this case I kept thinking of her as an object, because it seemed like I was acting on her. But no, the object is actually the thing that she reads. So I have tried to clarify the object by writing the definitions for vocabulary above as if the sentences are full. But be aware that you may just see the short version in dictionaries. For example:
magpaalis
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= to have someone leave (short version)
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magpaalis
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= to have someone make someone leave (full version)
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magpabasa
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= to have something read (short version)
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magpabasa
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= to have someone read something (full version)
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Summary Notes
Word order for magpa is <verb, actor, object, IA> where actor takes ang-form, object takes ng-form and IA takes sa-form. This is the same as an AF basic-sentence, except swap the IO and IA.
Word order for pa -in is <verb, actor, object, IA> where actor takes ng-form, object takes ang-form and IA takes sa-form. This is the same as an OF basic-sentence, except swap the IO and IA.
Remember that while magpa can be used with any root, pa -in is generally only used with roots that take um
Sample Sentences
Q1
Have the students read a book.
Magpabasa ka ng libro sa mga estudyante.
Q2
Leo kept his languages maintained.
Pinanatili ni Leo ang mga wika niya.
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I'm having Joe clean their rooms.
Nagpapalinis ako ng mga kuwarto nila kay Joe.
Q4
Mike will have his friends eat dinner.
Magpapahapunan si Mike ng mga kaibigan niya.
Q5
Have the girl cook the chicken for me.
Magpaluto ka ng manok sa babae para sa akin.
Q6
The teacher made sure the book was read by the students.
Pinabasa ng guro ang libro sa mga estudyante.
Q7
Mike is having Maria leave.
Nagpapaalis si Mike ni Maria.
Q8
The dogs will make Mario leave.
Paaalisin ng mga aso si Mario.
Q9
Feed the kids now.
Pakainin mo ang mga bata ngayon.
Q10
Beth had her dad buy the house.
Pinabili ni Beth ang bahay sa tatay niya.