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A nonfinite verb is a
derivative In mathematics, the derivative of a function of a real variable measures the sensitivity to change of the function value (output value) with respect to a change in its argument (input value). Derivatives are a fundamental tool of calculus. F ...
form of a
verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
unlike
finite Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to: * Finite number (disambiguation) * Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number * Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
verbs. Accordingly, nonfinite verb forms are
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
for neither
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
nor
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, and they cannot perform action as the root of an
independent clause An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...
. In
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, nonfinite verbs include
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
s,
participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s and
gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
s. Nonfinite verb forms in some other languages include
converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...
s,
gerundive In Latin grammar, a gerundive () is a verb form that functions as a verbal adjective. In Classical Latin, the gerundive is distinct in form and function from the gerund and the present active participle. In Late Latin, the differences were large ...
s and
supine In grammar, a supine is a form of verbal noun used in some languages. The term is most often used for Latin, where it is one of the four principal parts of a verb. The word refers to a position of lying on one's back (as opposed to 'prone', lyi ...
s. Formally, nonfinite verb forms lack the three grammatical features ( mood, tense and
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
) that are "associated, independently or relatively, with ... the act of predication." Generally, they also lack a subject dependent. One or more nonfinite verbs may be associated with a finite verb in a finite clause: the elements of a verb catena, or verb chain. Because English lacks most inflectional morphology, the finite and the nonfinite forms of a verb may appear the same in a given context.


Examples

The following sentences each contain one finite verb (underlined) and multiple nonfinite verbs (in bold): ::The case has been intensively examined today. ::What did they want to have done about that? ::Someone tried to refuse to accept the offer. ::Coming downstairs, she saw the man running away. ::I am trying to get the tickets. In the above sentences, ''been'', ''examined'' and ''done'' are past participles, ''want'', ''have'', ''refuse'', ''accept'' and ''get'' are infinitives, and ''coming'', ''running'' and ''trying'' are present participles (for alternative terminology, see the sections below). In languages like English that have little inflectional morphology, certain finite and nonfinite forms of a given verb are often identical, e.g. ::a. They laugh a lot. - Finite verb (present tense) in bold ::b. They will laugh a lot. - Nonfinite infinitive in bold ::a. Tom tried to help. - Finite verb (past tense) in bold ::b. Tom has tried to help. - Nonfinite participle in bold Despite the fact that the verbs in bold have the same outward appearance, the first in each pair is finite and the second is nonfinite. To distinguish the finite and nonfinite uses, one has to consider the environments in which they appear. Finite verbs in English usually appear as the leftmost verb in a verb catena. For details of verb inflection in English, see
English verbs Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed perip ...
.


Categories


English

In English, a nonfinite verb may constitute: :# an
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
verb, including the
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb (abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a p ...
''have'' as it occurs within a verb phrase that is predicated by a
modal verb A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the b ...
. :# a
participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
. :# a
gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
. Each of the nonfinite forms appears in a variety of environments.


Infinitive

The infinitive form of a verb is considered the
canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical example ...
form listed in dictionaries. English infinitives appear in verb catenae if they are introduced by an auxiliary verb or by a certain limited class of main verbs. They are also often introduced by a main verb followed by the particle ''to'' (as illustrated in the examples below). Further, infinitives introduced by ''to'' can function as noun phrases or even as modifiers of nouns. The following table illustrates such environments: :::


Participle

English participles can be divided along two lines: according to
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
(progressive vs. perfect/perfective) and
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
(active vs. passive). The following table illustrates the distinctions: ::: Participles appear in a variety of environments. They can appear in
periphrastic In linguistics, periphrasis () is the use of one or more function words to express meaning that otherwise may be expressed by attaching an affix or clitic to a word. The resulting phrase includes two or more collocated words instead of one infl ...
verb catenae, when they help form the main predicate of a clause, as is illustrated with the trees below. Also, they can appear essentially as an adjective modifying a noun. The form of a given perfect or passive participle is strongly influenced by the status of the verb at hand. The perfect and the passive participles of strong verbs in
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
are irregular (e.g. ''driven'') and must be learned for each verb. The perfect and passive participles of weak verbs, in contrast, are regular and are formed with the suffix ''-ed'' (e.g. ''fixed'', ''supported'', ''opened'').


Gerund

A gerund is a verb form that appears in positions that are usually reserved for nouns. In English, a gerund has the same form as a progressive active participle and so ends in ''-ing''. Gerunds typically appear as subject or object noun phrases or even as the object of a preposition: ::: Often, distinguishing between a gerund and a progressive active participle is not easy in English, and there is no clear boundary between the two nonfinite verb forms.


Auxiliary verb

Auxiliary verbs typically occur as finite verbs, but they also can occur as a participle (e.g. ''been'', ''being'', ''got'', ''gotten'', or ''getting'') or, in the case of ''have'', in a nonfinite context as the complement to a modal verb relating to a perfect tense, e.g.: :::


Native American languages

Some languages, including many
Native American languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, form nonfinite constructions by using nominalized verbs.Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The languages of Native America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Others do not have any nonfinite verbs. Where most European and Asian languages use nonfinite verbs, Native American languages tend to use ordinary verb forms.


Modern Greek

The nonfinite verb forms in
Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
are identical to the third person of the ''dependent'' (or aorist subjunctive) and it is also called the ''aorist infinitive''. It is used with the auxiliary verb έχω (to have) to form the perfect, the pluperfect and the future perfect tenses.


Theories of syntax

For an overview of
dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnià ...
structure in modern
linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
analysis, three example sentences are shown. The first sentence, ''The proposal has been intensively examined'', is described as follows. :: The three verbs together form a chain, or verb catena (in purple), which functions as the predicate of the sentence. The finite verb ''has'' is inflected for person and number, tense, and mood: third person singular, present tense, indicative. The nonfinite verbs ''been'' and ''examined'' are, except for tense, neutral across such categories and are not inflected otherwise. The subject, ''proposal'', is a dependent of the finite verb ''has'', which is the root (highest word) in the verb catena. The nonfinite verbs lack a subject dependent. The second sentence shows the following dependency structure: :: The verb catena (in purple) contains four verbs (three of which are nonfinite) and the particle ''to'', which introduces the infinitive ''have''. Again, the one finite verb, ''did'', is the root of the entire verb catena and the subject, ''they'', is a dependent of the finite verb. The third sentence has the following dependency structure: :: Here the verb catena contains three main verbs so there are three separate predicates in the verb catena. The three examples show distinctions between finite and nonfinite verbs and the roles of these distinctions in sentence structure. For example, nonfinite verbs can be auxiliary verbs or main verbs and they appear as infinitives, participles, gerunds etc.


See also

*
Balancing and deranking In linguistics, balancing and deranking are terms used to describe the form of verbs used in various types of subordinate clauses and also sometimes in co-ordinate constructions. * A verb form is said to be balanced if it is identical to forms us ...
*
Converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...
*
Gerundive In Latin grammar, a gerundive () is a verb form that functions as a verbal adjective. In Classical Latin, the gerundive is distinct in form and function from the gerund and the present active participle. In Late Latin, the differences were large ...
*
Grammatical conjugation In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ...
*
Infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
* Lexical categories, commonly known as
parts of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
*
Participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
*
Supine In grammar, a supine is a form of verbal noun used in some languages. The term is most often used for Latin, where it is one of the four principal parts of a verb. The word refers to a position of lying on one's back (as opposed to 'prone', lyi ...
*
Verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''quic ...
*
Verbal noun A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English grammar, English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the ...


References


Sources

*Dodds, J. 2006. The ready reference handbook, 4th Edition. Pearson Education, Inc.. *Finch, G. 2000. Linguistic terms and concepts. New York: St. Martin's Press. *Radford, A. 1997
Syntactic theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Rozakis, L. 2003. The complete idiot's guide to grammar and style, 2nd Edition''. Alpha. ISBN *Tallerman, M. 1998. Understanding syntax. London: Arnold. *Ylikoski, J. 2003
"Defining non-finites: action nominals, converbs and infinitives."
''SKY Journal of Linguistics'' 16: 185–237.


External links

*Owl Online Writing Lab Archive
Verbals: Gerunds, Participles, and Infinitives
{{Authority control Verb types