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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

infinitive noun phrases

"I prefer to leave" -- "to leave" is an infinitive noun phrase, right, that can be replaced with "it"?

But what about "I longed to leave" or "She asked to leave". Here, you can't replace the infinitive with "it", so what part of speech is the infinitive being used as?

Thank you, experts!
  

Top answer

No: "to leave" is an infinitival clause (subordinator + verb) functioning as catenative complement of "prefer". Catenative in this sense means 'chain of verbs. Same with your other two examples: "to leave" is catenative complement of "longed" and "asked".

— BillJ

  • No: "to leave" is an infinitival clause (subordinator + verb) functioning as catenative complement of "prefer".
  • Catenative in this sense means 'chain of verbs.
  • Same with your other two examples: "to leave" is catenative complement of "longed" and "asked".
  • Catenative complements are clauses, not noun phrases, and hence can't always be replaced by nouns or noun phrases.
  • As it happens, "ask" can be a transitive verb, so you could say "She asked it", but that's a different construction, (S-V-O).
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1 Answers
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No: "to leave" is an infinitival clause (subordinator + verb) functioning as catenative complement of "prefer". Catenative in this sense means 'chain of verbs.

Same with your other two examples: "to leave" is catenative complement of "longed" and "asked". Catenative complements are clauses, not noun phrases, and hence can't always be replaced by nouns or noun phrases.

As it happe
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