Catenative constructions and prepositions? Help!
Hello everyone! Just quickly, I've been working my way through the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, and I've been toying with sentences in an attempt to sort of process this new information. In the following sentence...
"I consider writing apology letters to be in bad taste."
If I understand things correctly, "writing apology letters" would be parsed as the verb form of the gerund-participle as opposed to a gerundial-noun or participial adjective. So, therefore, we've got a sort of catenative construction here, right? We've got "consider" (verb) "writing" (verb) "apology letters," a NP complement to "writing," and here is where I start to lose the thread...
"...to be in bad taste." I can see that "to be" is infinitival, and so I want to say that this is part of the catenative construction along with "consider" and "writing," but what is "in bad taste" ? "In" is a preposition, and "in bad taste" seems to function as an adjective of sorts, complement to the infinitival "to be." It might be akin to something like "...to be tasteless" or "...to be tacky."
Do I have this right? Or am I way, way off here? Thanks in advance!
Top answer
I consider writing apology letters to be in bad taste . Consider” is a catenative verb, and the underlined gerund-participial clause is catenative complement, where "writing apology letters" is subject and "to be in bad taste" is predicate. "In bad taste" is a PP functioning as predicative complement of "be".
- I consider writing apology letters to be in bad taste .
- Consider” is a catenative verb, and the underlined gerund-participial clause is catenative complement, where "writing apology letters" is subject and "to be in bad taste" is predicate.
- "In bad taste" is a PP functioning as predicative complement of "be".
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I consider writing apology letters to be in bad taste.
Consider” is a catenative verb, and the underlined gerund-participial clause is catenative complement, where "writing apology letters" is subject and "to be in bad taste" is predicate. "In bad taste" is a PP functioning as predicative complement of "be".
0car scarf 291"I consider writing apology letters to be in bad taste."
I see non-finite infinitive clause to be in bad taste as a copular construction in which the PP in bad taste is a complement as, for example, it is in the sentence It is in bad taste.
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