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Tkacka15 Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

A thing to be coming from the other side

"Asked specifically about the issue, Raab said: “Well, I think that’s a rather irresponsible thing to be coming from the other side."

(The Guardian.)

Is "to be coming" a catenative construction or are there two non-finite clauses, i.e., a rather irresponsible thing to be and coming from the other side in the predicate of that’s a rather irresponsible thing to be coming from the other side?

  

Top answer

"to be" goes with "coming" to form a continuous infinitive, but "to be coming" is not part of any (verbal) catenative construction. You could say that "irresponsible ... e.

— GPY

  • "to be" goes with "coming" to form a continuous infinitive, but "to be coming" is not part of any (verbal) catenative construction.
  • You could say that "irresponsible ...
  • e.
  • the irresponsibility of the thing results from (or is enhanced by) the fact that it's coming from the other side.
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2 Answers
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"to be" goes with "coming" to form a continuous infinitive, but "to be coming" is not part of any (verbal) catenative construction. You could say that "irresponsible ... to be coming from the other side" modifies "thing", i.e. the irresponsibility of the thing results from (or is enhanced by) the fact that it's coming from the other side.

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tkacka15(I think) that’s a rather irresponsible thing to be coming from the other side.

Wow! You certainly have a knack for finding unusual grammatical constructions!

I see this as containing an implicit infinitival for ... to ...clause as subject. In other words, it's a mash-up (technical grammatical term

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