Object or adverb?

Question

Dear friendsMy questions is:In the sentence: "I hope to win the lottery", does the infinitive phrase 'to win the lottery' a NOUN phrase functioning as the object of the verb 'hope', or an ADVERB phrase modifying the verb 'hope'?Thanks for your help.df

Philip · Accepted Answer

The noun phrase is the direct object of the verb hope.

BillJ · Answer

It's neither. The infinitival clause "to win the lottery" is a complement (specifically a 'catenative' complement). It's essential to complete the verb phrase. Catenative means to form a chain of verbs.

The verb "hope' is intransitive and therefore can't take an object.

BillJ

Philip · Answer

BillJIt's neither. The infinitival clause "to win the lottery" is a complement (specifically a 'catenative' complement). It's essential to complete the verb phrase. Catenative means to form a chain of verbs.The verb "hope' is intransitive and therefore can't take an object.BillJ

Many thanks for your illuminating post. I must admit that my response to the original post was probably too hasty, limiting my explanation only to the choices offered.

I always appreciate learnng new things, and I understand what you have said about catenative complement. However, American Heritage Dictionary also lists hope as transitive, with the example "We hope that our children will carry on our family traditions;" [to look forward to with expectation or confidence].

I'm a bit confused, as the intransitive explanation is [to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment], with no example. I'm not sure how the two hopes are different. Do the constructions that.... and to influence the analytic outcome?

CalifJim · Answer

Df2006~~does~~ is the infinitive phrase 'to win the lottery' a NOUN phrase

No. It's more like a whole clause.

I hope [ that I win ... ] ~ I hope [ to win ... ]

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Hello, Df2006:

May I just add my two cents to the excellent answers from Philip and CalifJim?

Yes, most books for ordinary language users would agree that we can analyze "to win the lottery" as an infinitive phrase
functioning as the direct object of the verb "hope." Those books consider that infinitive phrase to be a noun.

BillJ · Answer

PhilipMany thanks for your illuminating post. I must admit that my response to the original post was probably too hasty, limiting my explanation only to the choices offered.I always appreciate learnng new things, and I understand what you have said about catenative complement. However, American Heritage Dictionary also lists hope as transitive, with the example "We hope that our children will carry on our family traditions;" [to look forward to with expectation or confidence].I'm a bit confused, as the intransitive explanation is [to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment], with no example. I'm not sure how the two hopes are different. Do the constructions that.... and to influence the analytic outcome?

Hello Philip.

Here's my reply, which is based on a similar one I made a long time ago! It's rather long I'm afraid, but I think you can scan it to get the general gist:

The question is whether infinitival clauses, when functioning as complement to a verb, should be analysed as an object or a catenative complement. A good starting point might be to consider just what an object is. A prototypical object is a noun phrase (NP): “Ed likes my cat” where clearly the object is an NP. In a ditransitive clause a direct object has a recipient (indirect object) “I gave Ed my cat. And many direct objects can be predicand for a predicative complement: “I consider my cat lovable”. And direct objects can become subjects in a passive clause “My cat was fed by Ed”.

So we've built up a picture of the distinct properties of the category ‘object’. The NP “my cat”, in those examples exhibits the full set of distinct properties of a prototypical object. In today’s parlance we’d say it ‘ticks all the boxes’. Thus we tend to think of an object syntactically as being an NP.

The question now becomes whether infinitivals can be subsumed under the complement type filled by other classes of expression, in this case an NP. So we ask, is the infinitival in “She wants to leave the country” syntactically the same as the NP object in “She wants a holiday”?

Traditionally, infinitival clauses were indeed seen as objects, but that view was challenged some years ago by grammarians and professors of English who proffered an alternative view about non-finite complements of verbs. Essentially, their claim is that it’s not always possible to identify the function of subordinate clauses with that of non-clausal constituents such as NPs. In other words, non-finite clauses do not have the syntactic properties of NPs because non-finite complements of verbs cannot in general be assigned the same function as NPs. Thus, they are best analysed as constituting a distinct type of complement, i.e. the ‘catenative’ complement. Take these two clauses:

i “Kim started the riot”. ii “Kim started to riot”

The fact that in i the NP complement of “started” is object is not reason enough for saying that the infinitival non-finite complement in ii is an object too, for there are significant syntactic differences between the two types of complement, the most obvious being that NPs can be promoted to subject through passivisation but to-infinitivals cannot: “The riot was started by Kim” but not *“To riot was started by Kim”. And infinitival clauses can’t have recipients, for example in “I want Kim to start a riot”, “Kim” is direct object, not indirect object, not a recipient. Similarly, a predicative complement is not possible: *“I consider to start a riot unreasonable”.

Another factor to consider is the process of identifying objects by ‘questioning with what’. This is usually straightforward with NP objects so “What do you want?” might be answered with “I want a drink”, but with non-finites, especially infinitivals, it’s restricted to some verbs only. For example “What have you decided?” could be answered with “I’ve decided to accept the offer”, but “I’d like to go to France” is not an answer to “What would you like?”, nor “You should stop smoking cigarettes” to “What should I stop?"

I'm convinced because I too can't see how the function of the infinitival complement in, for example, "Kim began to understand it" can be equated with the NP Object in "Kim began the journey".

BillJ

PS: For the uninitiated, the term ‘catenative’ comes from the Latin word for chain, for the construction is repeatable in a way that enables us to form a chain of verbs in which all except the last have a non-finite complement. The chain can be quite long: “She seems to want to stop trying to avoid meeting him”. It really wouldn't make sense to say that there are four or so direct objects in that sentence!

PPS: The on-line Oxford gives “hope” as either a ‘verb without object’, or a ‘verb with clause’ (i.e. not ‘with object’), which I think is their way of saying that clausal complements are not objects.

Object or adverb?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions