Before you
begin your study of verbals, you should be fairly comfortable with analyzing
subordinate clauses. If you are not, you may have problems with verbals.
The reason for this is that you will find verbals by eliminating from consideration
all finite verbs, i.e., the verbs in clauses.
Any verb in a sentence that does not function as a finite verb has to function as one of the three verbals: Gerunds always function as nouns.
Object of Preposition: Mary was thinking (about playing golf.) Predicate Noun: The best hobby is reading. Direct Object: They love skiing. Gerundives always function as adjectives.
The book was on the table, closed and covered with dust. ["Closed" and "covered" modify "book." Infinitives function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Adjective: This is a good place to rest. Adverb: They came to play. The easiest way to identify infinitives is by the principle of exclusion: if a verb is not finite, not a gerund, and not a gerundive, then it has to be an infinitive. There is no other choice left. (The "to" with many infinitives helps, but not all infinitives include the "to.") The similarity of verbals to finite verbs is often overlooked in pedagogical grammars. Verbals are condensed, or reduced versions of the basic sentence pattern. Like finite verbs, they have subjects and complements. Subjects of Verbals The subject of a gerund is expressed as a possessive noun: "The crickets’ chirping kept me awake." If the gerund denotes a general action, performable by anyone, the subject is usually ellipsed: "*Anyone’s* swimming is good exercise." This expanded sentence sounds strange, and indeed it is: we have become accustomed to ellipsis. But when the subject of a gerund is ellipsed, it is always there, understood. Note, for example, that no one would interpret "worms" as the subject of the sentence, but who would not accept deer or dogs? Since a gerundive is a verb that functions as an adjective, the subject of a gerundive is the noun or pronoun it modifies. It is that simple. The subject of an infinitive, if expressed, is in the objective case. This question of case is meaningful only in relation to pronouns ("Let us go"), because nouns in English no longer show a distinction in case. Frequently, the subject of an infinitive is simply understood: in "Bill wanted to see the museum" it is clear that Bill wanted Bill to see the museum, otherwise the subject of the infinitive would have been supplied: "Bill wanted Mary to see the museum." Complements of Verbals Logically, complements of verbals would seem to need little discussion, but I have found that people well-trained in traditional grammar are often surprised to realize that verbals can have complements just as finite verbs have and that these complements can be found and distinguished in the same way that one finds and distinguishes the complements of finite verbs, i.e., by making a question with "what or whom" after the verbal. Their surprise is another indication of the categorizing, rather than conceptualizing approach usually taken toward traditional syntax. Instead of looking for similarities, traditional grammarians have stressed differences. Note that the conceptual approach not only simplifies, it also suggests the relative importance of concepts: the subject/verb/optional complement pattern is basic not only to every main and subordinate clause, but also to every verbal. It is truly the fundamental pattern of the language! KISS eliminates the traditional concepts of
objective and subjective complements by analyzing the relevant phrases
as infinitive phrases with the infinitive "to be" ellipsed. This modification,
which is based on the concept of deep and surface structure in transformational/generative
grammars, not only reduces the number of concepts that students must deal
with, but it also better aligns the grammatical explanations with the meanings
of the sentences.
1.) They wanted Sam to win the game.In the first, traditional grammar explains "Sam" as the subject of the infinitive "to win," and "game" as its direct object. The infinitive phrase is then considered as the direct object of "wanted." The second means the same as "They elected Sarah to be president," but the "to be" has been ellipsed. Thus we can say that "Sarah" is the subject, and "president" the predicate noun, of the ellipsed infinitive "to be," and, just as with the infinitive phrase with a direct object, this one functions, as a whole, as the direct object of, in this case, "elected." Transformational grammars suggest that we can look at sentences (1) and (2) as: 1.) They wanted something.By analogy, we can look at example three as: 3.) Mary held something.Although we would never say "Mary held the door to be open," the structural similarity between (3) and (1) and (2) enables us to consider "door" as the subject and "open" as the predicate adjective of an ellipsed "to be." Traditional grammarians might not like this explanation, but it does eliminate the need for "objective" and "subjective" complements. You can decide for yourself if it makes sense. After you have been working with verbals for a while, you will probably run across a few advanced questions, relatively rare cases which do not fit the descriptions given above. If you want to look at these now, you can, but remember to focus on the most common points first -- otherwise you will be confused by information overload. |
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This border is a reproduction of Before the Rehearsal 1880, Denver Art Institute, Denver, CO [for educational use only] |
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