THE INFINITIVE 'to be'

Question

What are the parts of speech of this expression: 'Just something to be mindful of...' In particular is the infintive form 'to be' acting as a verb (predicate)?Many thanksAsign

Avangi · Accepted Answer

I don't see it as a verb.

If you could put it in a sentence, we'd be better able to discuse parts of speech, or functions.

Many things are called "verbs" these days, but if you want to know if it's the "main (finite) verb," you need a sentence.

(Of course any infinitive is a verb.)

If you say, "It is something to be mindful of," everything after "it" is the predicate.

The infinitive phrase modifies "something."

Hmmm, I see what you mean. "I am mindful of something."

The expression is "to be mindful of something." OR "being mindful of something."

But you can't substitute the gerund for the infinitive in your phrase.

Vchekh · Answer

I think in such cases one should be more precise in terminology: parts of speech and parts of the sentence are different notions. Parts of speech are the verb, the noun, the adjective, the adverb, the pronoun, etc. Parts of the sentence are the subject, the predicate (which in turn falls into several types), the object, the attribute, etc.

For instance, the most common syntactical function of a verb is that of the predicate, but it can also function as other parts of the sentence:

To be a movie star is her most cherished ambition. (subject)

I knew nothing about her desire to become a movie star. (attribute)

They advised me to take a bus there. (object)

Coming back to your example ('Just something to be mindful of ...'), to be is definitely a verb (speaking in terms of parts of speech). As for its syntactical function, it's hard to say because the phrase is not a complete sentence. However, if the context is something like 'This is something to be mindful of.', then to be is an attribute: something of what kind? what kind of thing?

THE INFINITIVE 'to be'

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