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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary

To belong

He was known by the police to belong to the crime organization.

Is "to belong" in the catenative (chain) relation with the verb phrase "was known" in the above?
  

Top answer

Well, I found this question interesting and hard to answer. I did quite a bit of research on it. I consulted several complete lists of catenative verbs, and I read a great deal of information on them.

— Englishmaven

  • Well, I found this question interesting and hard to answer.
  • I did quite a bit of research on it.
  • I consulted several complete lists of catenative verbs, and I read a great deal of information on them.
  • None of the lists include "to know" as a catenative verb.
  • Based on the information about those verbs, and there is a great deal of information on them, I am inclined to say that it is a catenative verb and that "to belong to the crime organization" is the verb phrase complement.
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4 Answers
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Well, I found this question interesting and hard to answer. I did quite a bit of research on it. I consulted several complete lists of catenative verbs, and I read a great deal of information on them. None of the lists include "to know" as a catenative verb. Based on the information about those verbs, and there is a great deal of information on them, I am inclined to say that it is a catenative ve
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Thank you, EM, for that interesting comment.

My opinion is that it is a catenative construction. I think that "by the police" (a prepositional phrase) is an adverbial which goes in between two verb phrases, i.e. "was known" and "to belong", which are in a catenative relation. The adverbial as an optional part of the clause could be omitted thus manifesting "was known to belong" as catenat
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I would say that this is the passive version of:

The police knew him to belong to the crime organization.

Where "to belong to the crime organization" is an object complement.
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AnonymousMy opinion is that it is a catenative construction.
I don't suppose there is much harm in calling it a catenative construction, but the idea that it's the passive form of a sentence in which something is predicated of its object is also attractive as an analysis. A good place to look for more of these is in Beth Levin's classification "Conjecture Ver
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