The Syntactical Function of the Infinitive and the Gerund
The Infinitive and the Gerund seem to have practically the same syntactical functions, very close to those of the noun and, therefore, they are half-nouns (The Infinitive has the category of tense, aspect, voice). Their syntactical functions are nearly the same, there’s only one function – the predicative where the Gerund and the Infinitive follow the same pattern and can be used one instead of the other. As to the syntactical functions of the Infinitive some grammarians consider that the Infinitive can’t be the subject or object in the sentence. Their points of view are:
1. Such cases as “to live is to struggle” are exceptions, very seldom found and not typical.
2. That in the pattern “it is impossible to do it”, the infinitive might be an opposition (приложение), attribute and so on.
3. In the sentence “I’m glad to see you” the infinitive is not an object, but part of the predicate; this statement is not entirely proved yet.
4. Such cases as “I am glad to see you” and “there is nothing to fear about”; “I’ve come to speak to you”, “the picture is too good to miss” should be called “extensions” (изъяснения).
But all these are just diversity of theories. The Gerund is much closer to the noun, it is used with prepositions and forms prepositional phrases with all the syntactical functions of a prepositional noun phrases. A noun with a preposition can be the predicative, the possessive object, the attribute, and the adverbial modifier. And so can be the Gerund that shows it is very close to the noun. Another proof of the identity of the Gerund and the Noun is that it can be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the possessive case, but the relations between the possessive pronoun or a noun in the possessive case and the modified noun are attributes, while the relations between the possessive pronoun or a noun in the possessive case and the Gerund are predicatives.
| Infinitive | 1 .Meaning: - action (to go) - state (состояние) (to be angry) | ||||||||||
2. Form
| 3. Functions 1. подлежащее (Subject): To smokeis dangerous. Itis dangerousto smoke. 2. часть сказуемого (составного глагольного) (Predicative) My taskis to study. 3. дополнения прямого (Object) Ilike to study. 4. -------------------------- 5. обстоятельство (Adverbial modifier) I come here to study. | ||||||||||
| Gerund | 1.Meaning: - action (without talking) - свойство существительных substantivity(thingness) (предметность, явление) ... Like reading... ...hate eavesdropping... | ||||||||||
2. Form
3.Свойства существительного: · предлог (after reading) · притяжательное мест. Sorry for his coming late; · Сущ. в Possessive Case (director’s) · Сущ. в Common Case (I don’t mind the director sending me on a trip) | 3. Functions 1. подлежащее (Subject): a) Smokingis dangerous. b) Itis (no use/worth)going there. 3. часть сказуемого (составного глагольного) (Predicative) My taskis studying. 4. дополнения прямого и предложного (Object) Ilikestudying. I insist onyourstudying. 5. определение (Attribute) an idea of going there an experience in teaching the reason fir coming 6. обстоятельство (Adverbial modifier) After, before, on, upon, without, instead of, by, in spite of. before going to bed on crossing. | ||||||||||
| Participle | 1.Meaning: - action (is reading / sat reading) - process (are playing) - (св-ва прилагательного) quality degree of smth. (a smiling face, when crossing, not finding) | ||||||||||
2. Form Participle I
|
Participle II
| Non-Perfect | Active | Passive (переходные глаголы) | |
| written spoken | |||
| Perfect |
Eg: I was impressed by her dancing (attribute to the noun “dancing”)
Compare: I was impressed by her dancing (gerund) the part so well.
The Participle
The Participle has 5 forms: 2 – syntactical (present and past – playing, written) and 3 analytical (passive, perfect, passive perfect –being read, having read, having been read. By comparing the present and the past participle we shall see what grammatical categories this non-finite form possesses.
Eg: I looked at the playing boy.
The action “playing” is active performed by the modified word, taking place at the same moment with the action of the finite form of the verb, of a temporary one and taking place at a given moment in the past. Consequently, the present participle has voice (active), tense (relative-simultaneousness) and aspect (continuous). The present participle has a tendency of losing the category of tense and then it turns into an adjective and, consequently, it loses its other grammatical categories.
Eg: a running boy (at a certain moment)
running water (action is permanent)
There are adjectives which are clearly felt as participle – a charming woman, a pressing issue. The most typical meaning of the past participle is state or quality as a result of an action.
Eg: A broken vase lay on the floor.
“Broken” names a passive action, directed to a modified word, an action proceeded by that of the finite form of the verb. The given past participle has voice (passive), tense (relative), aspect (perfect). These are the categories of the Participle. Not all verbs can have independent Past Participle. Subjective verbs can have no independent past participle: has died – the participle is not independent, it is an analytical form. But there is an exception: some verbs of motion (all subjective) have independent past participles.
Eg: When we came here he was gone.
In this case the past participle “gone” has no passive meaning. Past participle “gone” with the attributive meaning has no category of voice. Sometimes we come across past participles which have no meaning of priority and no aspective meaning.
Eg: A red car driven by a middle-aged man.
Past Participle here has only the category of passive voice, but no meaning of priority. Such forms as “written, being worn” are used as attributes in the below given sentence. The present participle (active and passive) can also be used adverbially (as adverbs).
Eg: The book written by O. Jespersen describes English syntax.
Eg: Skirts being worn this season are about 10 santimetres above the knee.
Eg: Being asked his name, he replied. Asked his name, he answered.
Eg: He left saying nothing.
According to some grammarians the present participle has no adverbial function, whenever it is not an attribute; it should be considered the predicative of a double predicate.
Eg: Smiling bitterly she left the examination room. “Left smiling” may be considered an inverted double predicate.
Лекция 11
Категория глагола
Verb Aspect
Rick Harrison
Verbs exhibit various changes in human languages; some tongues inflect their verbs to indicate tense (past, present, future); some inflect verbs to indicate the person and number of the subject and/or object; and some have special forms to indicate “moods” such as commands (imperatives), conditional or hypothetical statements, and so forth. An element of verb mechanics that seems to be neglected by many language designers is aspect.
(If you are not interested in invented languages but rather came here hoping to understand aspect in natural languages, read on! You will see that constructed languages provide some of the clearest examples of certain aspects.)
Aspect refers to the internal temporal constituency of an event, or the manner in which a verb’s action is distributed through the time-space continuum. Tense, on the other hand, points out the location of an event in the continuum of events.
Be advised that many of the verb forms which are traditionally called “tenses” in grammar books and foreign language text-books are actually aspects; the traditional terminology is misleading. The distinctions between she read that book, she used to read such books, and she was reading that book when I entered the room are aspectual distinctions rather than differences of tense.
Also be aware that there is no widespread agreement on terminology with regard to aspect. Among linguists, different people use the same terms in different ways; for example, the aspect which is properly called “perfect” is often called “perfective,” and this can lead to confusion when discussing languages that mark both a perfective-imperfective and a perfect-nonperfect opposition.
Not all languages have inflections or special words to mark aspect, but most languages have ways to express the meanings which are embedded in the aspectual categories. (Bulgarian has a very rich set of aspectual inflections, but some dialects of German have very few.) When explicit inflections or particles are not available to indicate aspect, languages will use less elegant methods, often involving idiomatic set phrases, such as “used to” which marks the past tense form of the habitual aspect in English. In many natural languages, we find verb forms that combine both aspect and tense, e.g. the Spanish imperfect Juan leía, “Juan was reading, Juan used to read,” which combines the past tense and imperfective aspect.