Sentence structure

Question

Is the infinitive phrase, "to help her", of "She had many friends to help her" an object complement such as "paint her house" of "She had her husband paint her house?" Or, is it an adjective phrase included in an object such as "to write with" of "I have a pen to write with?"

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

lucas21cIs the infinitive phrase, "to help her", of "She had many friends to help her" an object complement such as "paint her house" of "She had her husband paint her house?"

No. That would be She had many friends help her. / She had her friends help her. (She arranged for her friends to help her.)

lucas21cOr, is it an adjective phrase included in an object such as "to write with" of "I have a pen to write with?"

No. That would be She had many friends to help. (She had many friends, and she had to help each of them.)
___________

It's adjectival in nature, but not in exactly the same way you mentioned with the example "pen to write with".

She had many friends [to help her / who were able to help her].

CJ

Lucas21c · Answer

1. I am afraid you might have misunderstand my original sentence. The 'had' is not a causative verb, but just a general verb. If I change the sentence a bit in order to better be understood, "It was fortunate she had many friends to help her." My question is based on this meaning of 'have'(its meaning is similar to 'own'), not the one of a causative verb(such as 'make' or 'let').

2. As you know, the structure of "I have a pen to write with" is Subject('I') + Verb('have') + Object('a pen to write with'), so its structure is exactly the same as the one of "I have a pretty pen" whose structure is Subject('I') + Verb('have') + Object('a pretty pen'). That is to say, 'to write with' and 'pretty' is an adjective included into the object though 'to write with' post-modifies the 'pen' while 'red' pre-modifies. But compared to that, the structure of "He had her husband paint her house" is totally different. Its structure is Subject("He") + Verb("had") + Object("her husband") + Object Complement("paint her house"). In other words, "paint her house" is not an adjective included into the object, but an object complement though it is also a kind of to-infinitive, a bare infinitive.

3. What I'd like to know is whether 'to help her' is an adjective(such as the 'red' or 'to write with') or an object complement(such as the 'paint her house'). If you got the gist of my question and there is nothing wrong about it, could you tell me which one the 'to help her' is?

CalifJim · Answer

lucas21c1. I am afraid you might have misunderstood my original sentence. The 'had' is not a causative verb, but just a general verb. If I change the sentence a bit in order to better be understood, "It was fortunate she had many friends to help her." My question is based on this meaning of 'have'(its meaning is similar to 'own'), not the one of a causative verb(such as 'make' or 'let').

You say the 'had' was not intended to be causative, but you asked if it was like the obviously causative construction "... had her husband paint the house". So I said no. I said if you wanted a causative construction, you'd have to write it differently. The examples below, on the other hand, are not causative. The infinitive may be regarded as a sort of reduced relative clause modifying 'friends'.

She had many friends to help her ~ She had many friends available to help her ~ She had many friends who were able to help her ~ She had many friends who could help her.

lucas21c2. As you know, the structure of "I have a pen to write with" is Subject('I') + Verb('have') + Object('a pen to write with'), so its structure is exactly the same as the one of "I have a pretty pen" whose structure is Subject('I') + Verb('have') + Object('a pretty pen'). That is to say, 'to write with' and 'pretty' is an adjective included into the object though 'to write with' post-modifies the 'pen' while 'red' pre-modifies. But compared to that, the structure of "He had her husband paint her house" is totally different. Its structure is Subject("He") + Verb("had") + Object("her husband") + Object Complement("paint her house"). In other words, "paint her house" is not an adjective included into the object, but an object complement though it is also a kind of to-infinitive, a bare infinitive.

Yes, I know, except that I would not talk in terms of an object complement when describing the causative structure. The causative structure is a catenative structure, i.e., a structure that connects two verbs in a defined format:

HAVE (noun) [verb phrase]

lucas21c3. What I'd like to know is whether 'to help her' is an adjective(such as the 'red' or 'to write with') or an object complement(such as the 'paint her house'). If you got the gist of my question and there is nothing wrong about it, could you tell me which one the 'to help her' is?

'to help her' is a post-modifier of 'friends', thus it's adjectival. Note that I already said it's adjectival in my first post.

CJ

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