I'm reading [this story](https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-lessons/1-2-the-
north-wind-and-the-sun/) and am trying to understand the use of the causative
in this sentence:

> あの人{ひと}のマントをどちらが早{はや}く脱{ぬ}がせることができると思{おも}う？

According to textbooks and [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/29172/1378), the "causee" (the
agent being caused to take the action) is marked with を for intransitive verbs
and with に for transitive verbs. 脱ぐ (to take off) is transitive, and を is
being used to mark its object (the cloak), so the causee would be marked with
に. There's no に, so the causee doesn't seem to be specified. According to
[this answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/29969/1378), the causee can
be omitted if it can be inferred from the context. So my first question is:

> Am I right in thinking that the causee has been omitted because it's clear
> from the context that it's the person?

The site translates the sentence into English as "What do you think, which of
us can make the person take off his cloak earlier?". Elsewhere, it says: "We
have written English translations with Japanese grammatical structures.
Therefore, some of them may not be natural in terms of English grammar." But
it seems to me that this translation is actually how the sentence would be
phrased naturally in English, and its structure doesn't correspond to that of
the original, as it doesn't contain the phrase "the person's cloak". In fact,
it seems to me like a faithful translation of the sentence obtained by
replacing の with に:

> あの人{ひと}にマントをどちらが早{はや}く脱{ぬ}がせることができると思{おも}う？

So my second question is:

> Is this a proper Japanese sentence (and if so, is it more or less natural
> than the sentence as written in the story)?

The structure of the sentence as written can't really be imitated in English,
since the causee can't be omitted in English in this active structure, but I
was wondering (third question) whether this passive construction comes closest
to faithfully rendering the original:

> What do you think, which of us can cause the person's cloak to be taken off
> earlier?

I'm aware that the verb isn't formally passive in the original, but I wonder
whether this phrasing captures the effect of specifing the direct object of
the action (the person's cloak) with を and omitting its subject.
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grammar particle-に particle-の particle-を causation
causative without に
Although 脱がせる is causative in form, it also describes an action that the
subject does to someone else directly, as in the case of a parent taking
clothes off an infant.

> 娘の靴を脱がせた。  
>  I took shoes off my daughter.

In a case like this, the wearer is embedded in the direct object of the verb
with a possessive の. A more literal translation would be:

> I took off my daughter’s shoes.

In your example, too, the sun and the wind see themselves as the active agents
of the action, although they are not going to touch a finger on the person (if
they have one).

Replacing の with に makes the sentence sound very odd.

> あの人 **に** マントをどちらが早く脱がせることができると思う？

あの人に being far away from the verb may be part of the reason, but the reordered
sentence below still sounds awkward.

> どちらが早くあの人 **に** マントを脱がせることができると思う？

If the sentence has to begin with あの人にマントを, some native speakers, including
me, would be inclined to use the double-causative 脱がさせる (the causative form of
the short causative verb 脱がす), although this is probably considered
grammatically incorrect.

> あの人 **に** マントをどちらが早く脱が **させる** ことができると思う？
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The "full" sentence would be あの人 **に** あの人のマント **を** 脱がせる, which is a textbook
example of the causative usage of a transitive verb. However this obviously
looks very redundant, and you have two options to fix this:

  * Make あの人に implicit: 「あの人 **の** マントを脱がせる」
  * Make あの人の implicit: 「あの人 **に** マントを脱がせる」

In this case, both are perfectly fine and natural, and these are
interchangeable in most similar situations (because we know adults normally
take off their cloaks on their own). But of course, depending on the context,
あの人のマントを脱がせる might have a different implicit causee (agent), and あの人にマントを脱がせる
may refer to a cloak someone else is wearing.

(In English, you cannot omit the direct object of the causative- _make_ , so
you always need to say something like "can you make _that person_ take off
_his_ cloak" rather than "can you make take off that person's cloak". In
Japanese, the causee can be safely omitted if it can be inferred from the
context. Each language has its own restrictions that make word-by-word
translations difficult.)
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