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In the phrases below:

He started to eat food
John decided to kick the ball
Justin prepared to face the challenge

Are the verbs started, decided, and prepared in s special category since they don't act directly on nouns but rather on other verbs? Not a linguist. Just curious.

George Sechu
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  • They are catenative verbs, the kind that take a non-finite clause as complement. – BillJ Aug 19 '22 at 13:42
  • Careful: The verbs of start and stop can be followed by a gerund. He started eating his food. – Lambie Aug 19 '22 at 16:19
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    "Catenative verbs" are a category that's described.as "verbs that can link with other verbs to form a chain, or series", according to Wikipedia. It apparently excludes auxiliary verbs, and includes a lot of Raising verbs and Equi verbs, I don't know whether it includes all sense verbs, or even small verbs like go in go fishing. It's a new term, and most linguists find it too broad to be useful. The definition makes sense, but when you already have verb categories, why not use them? – jlawler Aug 19 '22 at 22:18
  • @Lambie - Gerunds and participles are also non-finite clauses. Bill's saying no that clauses or embedded question clauses; they're both finite (i.e, verbs marked for tense). And note that start, decide, and prepare can all have noun phrase objects: Bill started it, not me; Frank decided it, but we all approved; Mary prepared lunch, which was delicious. They can also take complement (i.e, clausal) objects. Nothing new there. – jlawler Aug 19 '22 at 22:23
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    @jlawler Auxiliary verbs are also catenative verbs according to CGEL, OMEG, so I think that says more about the Wiki author's analysis of auxiliaries than the general category of catenative verbs, perhaps. Catenative verbs are verbs that take catenative complements for such grammars. A catenative complement is just a non-finite complement of a verb. Grammars that use the term usually don't recognise such complements as Objects or PCs, for example. So catenative verb is equivalent in status to transitive verb, i.e. not particularly useful. – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 09:31
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    @Araucaria-him Do you find "catenative" useful? I agree it's not much of a category because all it says is it's part of a chain. That reminds me too much of PS grammars. We do know a bit more about verb usage now. – jlawler Aug 20 '22 at 15:02
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    @jlawler It's not about what the grammatical category is. Learners need to know how to use verbs. I was not denying anything. I was adding to it. – Lambie Aug 20 '22 at 15:46
  • Yeah, getting the right grammatical term is pretty useless unless you're talking to a particular group of linguists only. Knowing what the constructions are and how they work is far more important. – jlawler Aug 20 '22 at 16:14
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    @jlawler I think 'catenative verb' isn't very useful (and CGEL don't use the term very much) but 'catenative complement' is useful because it gives a grammatical relations label for those non-finite complements which, when you look at them closely, don't behave like DOs or CPs. – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 16:30
  • @Lambie So what is the import of your Careful: The verbs of start and stop can be followed by a gerund? I took it to be correcting something. "Careful" at the beginning of a reply normally indicates the listener is doing something wrong. Can't work out what that is here. – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 16:38
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    @Araucaria-him Careful just means bear in mind. In fact, this OP needs to understand about to infinitive clauses or whatever you all call them. – Lambie Aug 20 '22 at 17:14
  • @Lambie What do they need to understand about them? – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 17:19
  • @Araucaria-him You remind me of OP's that ask a question, we answer and then they say: But can you say x?/// They need to understand the difference between to as a link between two verbs versus an ing following some verbs. The question was about "to" linking two verbs and my remark was about verbs that can be followed by gerunds. The fact is that the question is faulty as if assumes some relationship between those verbs. – Lambie Aug 20 '22 at 17:24
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    @Lambie You added an extra comment "In fact. ....". I didn't understand the not very specific extra comment, that's all. Even after you've elucidated I still don't understand what they're meant to understand, so maybe I am like them, in fact. (Not surprising, we're all potential OP's after all). – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 17:34
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    @Araucaria-him - Thanks. That makes sense. I'll hafta think about that. I don't use CP anyway, and DO is strictly a predicate-governed relation (every predicate has its own rules for DOs), so I'm not sure I need a special term for a clausal argument, when "clausal argument" does the same work. – jlawler Aug 20 '22 at 18:13
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    @jlawler Sorry, I meant 'PCs' (predicative complements) not CP's! – Araucaria - him Aug 20 '22 at 18:47
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    Oh, I just call them "complements" and don't use the term any other way. By me it's a synonym for "clausal argument". Since all arguments are specified by predicates, the word "predicative" is just 4 extra syllables. – jlawler Aug 20 '22 at 19:30

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