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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
Label the grammatical structure
Hi there. I have to label the parts of the structure in sentence "She can speak Mandarin".
I am of the opinion that it is in the base form, but apparently that is incorrect. I am aware that there are two pasts to the verb phrase, but I cannot see that that it is anything else than the base form. Can anybody please help?
I am of the opinion that it is in the base form, but apparently that is incorrect. I am aware that there are two pasts to the verb phrase, but I cannot see that that it is anything else than the base form. Can anybody please help?
Top answer
There is no past-tense form in that sentence. 'Can' is the present/unmarked/non-past form of the modal verb CAN, and 'speak' is the bare infinitive of the full verb SPEAK. The bare infinitive all all verbs has the same form as the base/first/citation form of the verb.
- There is no past-tense form in that sentence.
- 'Can' is the present/unmarked/non-past form of the modal verb CAN, and 'speak' is the bare infinitive of the full verb SPEAK.
- The bare infinitive all all verbs has the same form as the base/first/citation form of the verb.
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1 Answers
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There is no past-tense form in that sentence. 'Can' is the present/unmarked/non-past form of the modal verb CAN, and 'speak' is the bare infinitive of the full verb SPEAK. The bare infinitive all all verbs has the same form as the base/first/citation form of the verb.
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