Non finite clauses

Question

what are the syntactic functions and the types of these non-finite clauses?

1. He is the man to talk to

is it adjectival clause that function as nominal complement?? or is it a nominal clause function as nominal complement?

2 John lacks the energy to write such a book.

3. they were the first men to land on the moon

4. These are the factors to be taken into account

5. Is he the man with whom to do business

6. peter's wish to be buried in England could not be fulfilled.

7. I received a letter asking me to return to England.

8. what is the deep structure underlying the sentence.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

raghad ahmadIs it an adjectival clause that functions as nominal complement? Or is it a nominal clause functioning as nominal complement?

Complements don't enter into it. These are structures that modify nouns (except the last one).

Most of them are infinitival relative clauses. Like other more familiar relative clauses, they modify the noun which occurs before them.

Thus, "to talk to" modifies "man" in 1, "to write such a book" modifies "energy" in 2, and so on.

In 5 you have a variant of "the man to do business with", but the modification function remains the same. Conversely, 1 could be "the man to whom to talk".

In 7 you have something different. Here you have a catenative structure. The verb "ask" allows the infinitive form of another verb to follow:

ask him to leave; ask us to stay; ask the man to sit down

In this case the infinitive is not part of an infinitival relative clause, so it is not regarded as a modifier.

You may be interested in the link below. Toward the end it has a section on infinitival clause complements. After studying that thoroughly you may see a reason to call some of your examples complements after all.

CJ

Non finite clauses

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions