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Anonymous Posted 5 years ago
Grammar

Have made repeated attempts to convince

Investigators have made repeated attempts to convince local authorities to hand over the suspect.

Is the verb phrase have made repeated attempts to convince a catenative construction or is it the verb phrase of have made repeated attempts followed by the implied prepositional phrase "in order" [have made repeated attempts (in order) to convince...]?

  

Top answer

anonymous Is the verb phrase have made repeated attempts to convince a catenative construction Only insofar as 'attempts' is a synonym for 'tries' (noun), and the verb form 'try' can occur in the catenative structure "try to {verb}". That's pretty weak evidence for claiming we have a catenative construction here. ]?

  • anonymous Is the verb phrase have made repeated attempts to convince a catenative construction Only insofar as 'attempts' is a synonym for 'tries' (noun), and the verb form 'try' can occur in the catenative structure "try to {verb}".
  • That's pretty weak evidence for claiming we have a catenative construction here.
  • ]?
  • Yes.
  • You may consider the non-finite clause starting 'to convince' to be an infinitive of purpose.
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1 Answers
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anonymousIs the verb phrase have made repeated attempts to convince a catenative construction

Only insofar as 'attempts' is a synonym for 'tries' (noun), and the verb form 'try' can occur in the catenative structure "try to {verb}". That's pretty weak evidence for claiming we have a catenative construction here.

anonymousis it t

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