I feel regretful to have you back?

Question

I feel regretful to have you back

(I'm a foreigner. In this sentence,

have is a causative verb?

and What kine of 'part of speech' of "back"?)

what kind of part of speech

Answer 1

There is something wrong with this sentence, as it is something which you can't say to anyone without causing hurt and offence. You are sorry that someone has come back, i.e. returned. I'd be very upset if anyone said that to me. Perhaps you were trying to express the feeling of wanting somebody back, i.e. "I am longing to have you back" or "I am looking forward to having you back"? Back is an adverb. It is used with the verbs "come", "go" and "be" to express the idea of returning.

Answer 2

There is no real causative voice in English, but by many standards, "to have" in this case could be mistranslated as such.

In reality, "to have" is part of the adverb "to have you back," which is actually in its entirety an infinitive phrase. It is an adverb as it modifies the adjective "regretful."

Within the infinitive phrase, "you" is the object of the infinitive "to have" and "back" is an adjective as it modifies the pronoun "you."

It should be noted that your sentence is a bit awkward, however. While it is grammatically correct, you would be hard-pressed to find a native English speaker using such a phrase simply because it's a bit bulky. One alternative would be "I am sorry to have you back." This carries the same meaning. Another would be "I regret having you back." Again, this sentence has the same meaning and the same weight while cutting down on unnecessary words and syllables.

Answer 3

In this contesxt, 'back' is an adverb.