Adverb of infintive or main verb?

Question

Pretend we have a sentence with two verbs.
"I want to go" - The "to go" is the infinitive object"
"I stopped working" - "The "working" is gerund object.

Now if I add common prepositional phrases,
"I want to go TO THE MALL"
"I stopped working YESTERDAY"

In the first example, "to the mall" seems as if it modifies the verb expressed in the infinitive, while in the second example "yesterday" seems to modify the main verb. Is there some rule for this OTHER THAN logic?

Thanks.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

BlackBlitzIs there some rule for this OTHER THAN logic?

Your insistence on "other than logic" is puzzling. The fact is that probably the only "rule" is that you can't use logic -- in the sense of some computer program that could determine what modifies what without knowing the meaning of the words. The only "logic" you can use, and I wouldn't call it logic, is your knowledge of the meanings of words. But perhaps that's what you meant.

You instinctively know, if you know what "want" and "to the mall" mean, that I want to the mall is nonsense, for example. It isn't really logic, but your knowledge of the world, that tells you this.

If I use words that are not familiar to you,

I increptit to regametate very perstuatively

you have no way of knowing, through logic, whether perstuatively modifies increptit or regametate, i.e., whether the pattern is more like 1 or 2 below.

1. I want to return very badly.

2. I want to return very quickly.

CJ

Adverb of infintive or main verb?

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