Infinitive clauses vs phrases
please help me. i have a question.
"i want to eat something."
above a sentence
"to eat something" is infinitive clause or phrase?
someone says that the group of words is infinitve phrase. because there is no subject.
someone says that the group of words is infinitive clause. because the subject is omitted.
which one is correct?
thank you for your help.
Top answer
I want to eat something . "To eat something" is an infinitival clause. We know it's a clause because it has a subject-predicate structure, where "eat something" is the predicate in which "something" is object of "eat".
- I want to eat something .
- "To eat something" is an infinitival clause.
- We know it's a clause because it has a subject-predicate structure, where "eat something" is the predicate in which "something" is object of "eat".
- Most infinitival clauses are non-finite, and most non-finite clauses have no overt subject, but they are still clauses since a subject can usually be retrieved from elsewhere in the sentence.
- Here, the subject of the infinitival clause can only be "I".
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I want to eat something.
"To eat something" is an infinitival clause. We know it's a clause because it has a subject-predicate structure, where "eat something" is the predicate in which "something" is object of "eat". Most infinitival clauses are non-finite, and most non-finite clauses have no overt subject, but they are still clauses since a subject can usually be retrieve
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