The infinitive as a part of a compound verbal predicate

The infinitive is used in compound verbal predicates of three types:

I. In a compound verbal modal predicate after the modal verbs can, may, might, ought, must, shall, should, will, would, need, dare, to be, to have, and expressions with modal meaning had better, would rather.

I can tell you nothing at all about him.

She ought to have told me before.

II. In a compound verbal phasal predicate after verbs denoting various stages of the action, such as its beginning, continuation, or end. These verbs (to begin, to come, to start, to continue, to go on, to cease, etc.) followed by a “to”-infinitive form a compound verbal phasal predicate.

Now I begin to understand you.

Then she came to realize what it all meant.

They continued to whisper.

The verbs to begin, to continue and to start can also be followed by a gerund, although with a certain difference in meaning. Thus the verb to stop followed by a gerund means to put an end to an action, to interrupt, whereas followed by an infinitive means to pause in order to do something. So the infinitive after the verb to stop is used in the function of an adverbial modifier of purpose.

He stopped to see what it was. -Он остановился, чтобы посмотреть, что это такое.

He stopped seeing her.-Он перестал с ней встречаться.

III. The compound verbal predicate of double orientation. The three subtypes of this predicate can be distinguished according to the expression of the first part:

1. The first part is expressed by one of the following intransitive verbs in the active voice: to seem - казаться; to appear - оказаться, казаться; to prove, to turn out - оказаться; to happen, to chance - случаться. After the verbs to prove and to turn out the infinitive is mostly nominal, that is presented by to be + noun or adjective. After the verbs to seem, to appear, to happen all types and forms of the infinitive are possible.

Simple sentences with this type of predicate are synonymous with complex sentences of a certain pattern: He seems to be smiling. -It seems that he is smiling.

It appeared that she had said all.-She appeared to have said all.

Sentences with compound verbal predicates of double orientation are translated into Russian in different ways depending on the meaning of the first verbal element:

Nothing appeared to be happening there. -Казалось, что здесь ничего не происходит.

Не appeared to have been running all the way -Казалось, что он пробежал всю дорогу бегом.

Не proved to be a healthy child. Ночь оказалась холодной.

The night turned out to be cold.

2. The first part of the predicate is expressed by the passive voice forms of certain transitive verbs. They are:

a) verbs of saying: to announce, to declare, to report, to say, to state, etc.

She was announced to be the winner.- Было объявлено, что победила она.

Не is said to have returned at last. -Говорят, что он наконец вернулся.

b) verbs of mental activity: to believe, to consider, to expect, to find, to known, to mean, to presume, to regard, to suppose, to think, to understand, etc.

Her father was thought to have died long ago.- Считалось (считали, думали, полагали), что ее отец давным-давно умер.

She is believed to be a clever girl.- Ее считают умной девушкой. (Считается, что она умная де­вушка.)

c)verbs of sense perception: to feel, to hear, to see, to watch.

She was often seen to walk all alone- Часто видели, как она гуляет сов­сем одна.

d) the verb to make. He was made to keep silent.- Его заставили молчать.

3. The first part is expressed by the phrases: to be likely, to be unlikely, to be sure, to be certain. In this case only the non-perfect forms of the infinitive are used, with future reference.

She is likely to be late.|He is sure to become your friend|.They are sure to be wanted as evidence.

10.The infinitive as object

The infinitive can have the function of object after verbs, adjectives, adjectivized participles and statives.After verbs the infinitive may be either the only object of a verb or one of two objects. 1. Verbs that take only one object are: to agree, to arrange, to attempt, to care (to like), to choose, to claim, to consent, to decide, to deserve, to determine, to expect, to fail, to fear, to forget, to hesitate, to hope, to intend, to learn, to like, to long, to love, to manage, to mean, to neglect, to omit, to plan, to prefer, to pretend, to refuse, to regret, to remember, to swear, to tend, etc.Ex: She agreed to come at ten. Among these verbs two groups can be distinguished:a) the verbs to claim, to fail, to forget, to hate, to like, to omit, to regret, to remember, to swear, with which the perfect infinitive denotes actions prior to those of the finite verbs. It can be accounted for by the fact that semantically these verbs denote an action or state following or resulting from that of the infinitive (you can regret only what was or has been done).ex: I regret to have said it to her. b) The verbs to attempt, to expect, to hope, to intend, to mean, to plan, to try, when followed by the perfect infinitive imply that the action of the infinitive was not fulfilled. ex:I hoped to have found him at home. In this case the finite verb can be used only in the past tense. Besides the above-mentioned verbs there are also some rather common phrases used with the infinitive-object. They are the phrases can afford, can bear in the negative or interrogative and such phrases as to make sure, to make up one’s mind, to take care, to take the trouble. Ex: Can you afford to buy it yourself? 2. Verbs that take two objects, the first of which is a noun or a pronoun and the second an infinitive. These are the verbs of inducement; they all have the general meaning to persuade, to cause to do something.

With all these verbs, except to have, to let and to make, a “to”- infinitive is used. After the verbs to have, to let and to make it loses the particle “to”.ex:She’ll have you do it at once. The object, which is a noun in the common case or a pronoun in the objective case, denotes a person (or, very seldom, a non-person) who is to perform the required action expressed by the infinitive.The verb to help can be used either with one or with two objects:She helped to pack. |She helped me to make up my mind.In either case a “to”- infinitive or a bare infinitive can be used. Ex:And she actually helped find it. With some verbs the function of object may be performed by a conjunctive infinitive phrase. These verbs are very few in number and fall into two groups:a) Verbs that can take either an infinitive or a conjunctive infinitive phrase as their object. These are: to advise, to decide, to forget, to learn, to remember.ex: He advised me to go on. b) Verbs that can take only a conjunctive infinitive phrase as their object: to know, to show, to wonder.ex:She did not know what to say.

The infinitive can have the function of object after certain adjectives (adjectivized participles), mostly used as predicatives. Semantically and structurally these fall into two groups. 1. The most frequent adjectives of the first group are: anxious, apt, bound, careful, curious, determined, difficult, eager, easy, entitled, fit, free, hard, impatient, inclined, interested, keen, liable, powerless, prepared, quick, ready, reluctant, resolved, set, slow, worthy.ex:She’s determined to go on. 2. The most frequent adjectives (adjectivized participles) of the second group are: amused, annoyed, astonished, delighted, distressed, frightened, furious, glad, grateful, happy, horrified, pleased, proud, puzzled, relieved, scared, sorry, surprised, thankful, touched.ex:He was amused to hear it. These adjectives and participles express certain psychological states which are the result of the action expressed by the infinitive object, so the latter therefore always denotes an action slightly preceding the state expressed by the predicate, and can have both non-perfect and perfect forms. The non-perfect forms are used to express immediate priority, that is, an action immediately preceding the state:I’m glad to see you (I see you and that is why I am glad). 3. After certain statives denoting psychological states, such as afraid, agog, ashamed:He was ashamed to tell us this.In such cases the infinitive points out the source of the state expressed by the stative.