Who carries out the action of くる in 呼んでくる?

Question

In the following sentence, who carries out the action of くる?

田中さん、ちょっと山本さんを呼んできてください。

Generally, Vてくる means to go somewhere, do V, and come back. But in English, it would sound more natural to say something like “Tanaka, call Yamamoto over.” After all, the speaker wants Yamamoto to come over.

Answer 1

This is a perfectly natural use of くる. 呼んでくる does mean "go and call (and then come back)"; this sentence means Tanaka-san has to go out of the room to call Yamamoto-san, and then come back (with or without him). This use of くる is exactly the same as くる as in 買ってくる, 見てくる, 出かけてくる, etc.