Caused motion construction

The caused motion construction (omitting the subject, which Lamb does not consider part of it) is a construction that can be written

  

where  stands for "directional," covering such possibilities as "away", "into the room", "off the table", "out of here", etc. Here,  represents any action that can cause motion, and so it permits any verb that can be so construed, even "sneeze", to impart motion to a suitable patient -- that is, anything construable as a suitable patient. Notice that we are talking semantics and not about syntax as traditionally treated. As soon as a speaker can construe any action as an instance of caused motion, the values of the variables are those which fit this construal of the situation.