Infinitive Phrases

4 Key excerpts on "Infinitive Phrases"

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  eBook - ePub

  Introducing English Grammar

  • David J. Young(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 5 , p. 84, and glossary for further comments on the term clause as compared with sentence.) We may also use the terms finite and non-finite of clauses. If a clause contains a finite verb phrase, it is a finite clause; such clauses contain a subject. If a clause contains a verb phrase but has no finite verb phrase, then it is a non-finite clause.

  (Exercises 8 , 9 and 10 are on pp. 51–2.)

   

  Verbs as complements

  We saw on p. 37 that verbs can take a wide variety of expressions as their complements. Further study of the complementation of verbs will feature in Chapter 5 . However, in order to provider representative survey of the distribution of verbs, we now need to take note that verbs can themselves occur as the complements of verbs. For instance, the verb want can have either a noun phrase or a verb phrase as its complement:

  He wants a permit He wants to sleep

  In the first of these, a permit is a noun phrase; in the second to sleep is a verb phrase. The verb sleep appears here with the word to in front of it. This word is called the infinitive particle. Expressions like to sleep , to go , to see are called infinitives, or to-infinitives. As the name suggests they are non-finite (see above, pp. 41–2), having no tense or subject agreement. Here are some further examples of sentences in which the main verb is complemented by a to-infinitive:

  The porter expects to find the key in the lock I am trying to close the door

  In the first of these, the first verb phrase is expects and it is complemented by the infinitive to find which, in its turn, has a noun phrase as complement, the key . In the second example, the first verb phrase is am trying , with main verb try , and this is complemented by to close (which, in its turn, has a noun phrase, the door , as complement).

  We must be careful not to confuse to infinitives with prepositional phrases beginning with the preposition to (seeChapter 2

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  Essentials of English Grammar

  • Otto Jespersen(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  5 . From the infinitive of purpose we are led to the following constructions, in which the main verb expresses a necessary condition to obtain a result:

  To be effective, a poem must be beautiful (also: In order to).The evidence, to be of value, must be independent of hear-say.I could not write a sonnet to save my life.

  32 .36 . Further illustrations of the use of infinitives as tertiaries:

  Cousin, I am too young to be your father. Though you are old enough to be my heire (Sh.). What a lucky fellow I am to have such a wife.Woe is me, T'have scene what I have seene, see what I see (Sh.). Who am I to quarrel with Providence?The money is his to do what he pleases with.To look at him you could hardly help laughing.A man would be blind not to see that.I know her to bow to.

  He was shocked to hear her vulgar expressions (This to some extent resembles the use in 32 .1 8 ).

  Primaries in an Infinitive-Nexus.

  32 .41 . We must now deal with the question, how those words which in a complete sentence would be primaries (subject and object) are treated in connexion with an infinitive. With regard to the object, this presents no difficulty (it did to some extent with gerunds, 31 .2 ), the verbal character of the infinitive shows itself by its capacity of having objects:

  I want to give you a piece of advice: don't make Jack your intimate friend.

  32 .4

  2 .

  With regard to the subject of an infinitive the question is more involved. Here, as in 31 .31

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  American English Grammar

  An Introduction

  • Seth R. Katz(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Non-Finite Verb Phrases

  It is time now to turn our attention to what is in many ways the most slippery but most useful part of English grammar: non-finite verb phrases. The finite forms of verbs are the two tensed forms: the present and past, which may each stand alone as the MV of a clause. The three other forms are called “non-finite” because they are not tensed and so cannot stand alone as the main verb of a clause:

  Finite	Non-finite
  Present	Past	Present (-ing) Participle	Past (-ed) Participle	Infinitive
  drive(s)	drove	driving	driven	to drive
  walk(s)	walked	walking	walked	to walk

  Until now, we have only dealt with the non-finite forms of verbs in the context of their use in multi-word finite verbs (see Chapter 6 ). But non-finite verbs can function in other roles within clauses: like dependent clauses, both participle and Infinitive Phrases can function as nominals, adjectivals, and adverbials. And just as an NP can consist of a noun by itself, so a participle phrase (PART P) or an infinitive phrase (INF P) can consist of a participle or infinitive alone.

  • Embarrassed , I felt like the neo-pro I was
    .1
  • Cue the laughing trombones
    .2
  • To err is human
    .3

  In the first sentence, embarrassed is a participle functioning adverbially as a disjunct (PART P:ADVERBIAL :DISJUNCT ). In the second sentence, laughing is a participle functioning adjectivally as a modifier of trombones (PART P:ADJECTIVAL :MOD OF “trombones”). And in the third sentence, to err is an infinitive functioning nominally as the subject (INF P:NOMINAL :SUBJ ).

  Like dependent clauses, non-finite verb phrases have their own internal constituent structures

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  Understanding Syntax

  • Maggie Tallerman(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)
• Via inflections on the main verb itself. See (2), (3), (9), (10), (11).
• Via a separate word or particle; an independent grammatical word. See (4); also English not as described earlier.
• Via an auxiliary. See (6), (8), (12).

3.1.5 Non-finite verbs

NON-FINITE verbs in English are not marked for tense, person/number agreement or any of the other grammatical categories associated with finite verbs, such as aspect or mood. This is very oft en true of other languages as well, but not all, as we will see. I divide non-finite verbs into the two main types that occur cross-linguistically, INFINITIVES and PARTICIPLES . English has an infinitive plus two different participles.

• Infinitives

It is not easy to provide a satisfactory cross-linguistic definition of the term ‘infinitive’, and forms corresponding to the English infinitive are not particularly common in other languages. Some languages mark the infinitive with special inflections: for instance, French has the suffixes - er (as in dessin-er ‘to draw’), - ir (as in fin-ir ‘to finish’) and - re (as in vend-re ‘to sell’). In English, the infinitive is the bare verb stem, with no inflections: examples are eat , relax , sing , identify , cogitate . As we’ve already seen in this chapter, though, this property is not sufficient to identify an infinitive in English, since finite verbs in the present tense also have this same ‘bare’ form: I sing , you sing and so on, apart from the third person singular (sings ).

We can identify English infinitives instead by their distribution. Modal auxiliaries in English require a following infinitive, as in Charlie must ____(that ). An infinitive also occurs after to in environments such as I had to____then ; For you to____now would be good . This to is an INFINITIVAL MARKER , not to be confused with the entirely different to