To learn (adverbial, adjectival, purpose, etc)

Question

A good way to learn something is to repeat it many times. You do not have enough hours in a day to keep up with all of it. Do you think "to learn" and "to keep up with" here are adjectival infinitive phrases? I want to define the grammatical function of them.Thanks.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Mr genuineDo you think "to learn" and "to keep up with" here are adjectival infinitive phrases?

At first sight they don't seem so to my ear.

'to learn' sounds like a complement of 'way', though it also seems it could be an adjectival infinitive.
'to keep up (with)' sounds like a complement of 'enough'.

Wait for other comments. There may be different interpretations.

CJ

BillJ · Answer

Mr genuine
A good way to learn something is to repeat it many times.
You do not have enough hours in a day to keep up with all of it.
Do you think "to learn" and "to keep up with" here are adjectival infinitive phrases? I want to define the grammatical function of them.

Thanks.

"Learn” and “keep” both function as predicator in the underlined clauses.

[1] A good way to learn something is to repeat it many times.

[2] You do not have enough hours in a day to keep up with all of it.

In [1] “learn” is predicator in the infinitival relative clause “to learn something”, a manner adjunct modifying the noun “way”. The noun phrase A good way to learn something is subject, and the infinitival clause to repeat it many times functions as subjective predicative complement of “be”.

In [2] “keep” is predicator in the infinitival clause to keep up with all of it, which functions as an adjunct of purpose. Note that you could insert “in order” to give in order to keep up with all of it, in which case the adjunct would be a preposition phrase.

To learn (adverbial, adjectival, purpose, etc)

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