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Fort lee Posted 4 years ago
Grammar

Convince

Hi,

In the passage from New York Post below, I can't find the object of 'convince'.

It looks like 'contested states' but not sure.

I thought maybe 'convince' should change to 'convinced' but not sure either.

Can someone help me please?



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In June, it executed search warrants on both former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark, who sought to help Trump convince contested states of the false premise that DOJ believed Biden’s victory might be fraudulent

  

Top answer

fort lee It looks like 'contested states' but not sure. It is. "Convince" is a bare infinitive, and "contested states" is its direct object.

— Anonymous

  • fort lee It looks like 'contested states' but not sure.
  • It is.
  • "Convince" is a bare infinitive, and "contested states" is its direct object.
  • This is all part of a larger grammatical structure involving the causative verb "to help".
  • "Trump" is not the subject of "convince" but the agent of "help".
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2 Answers
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fort leeIt looks like 'contested states' but not sure.

It is. "Convince" is a bare infinitive, and "contested states" is its direct object. This is all part of a larger grammatical structure involving the causative verb "to help". "Trump" is not the subject of "convince" but the agent of "help". It gets complicated when you start picking it apart.

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fort leeI thought maybe 'convince' should change to 'convinced' but not sure either.

No.

verb NP verb (help {someone} convince) is a complex-catenative construction. The first verb is inflected (i.e., is finite); the second is not (i.e., is non-finite).

Others:
see/saw {someone} do {something}
hear/heard {someone} do {so

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