Quote:
Originally Posted by Burwood  Hi everyone.
Although I'm an English speaker I know very little about grammar. I think there are two clauses in this sentence. Could someone tell me if I'm right? And if not, please explain how the two verbs relate to each other.
Thanks for any help.
They made us translate an English paragraph.
(They made us)(translate an English paragraph.) |
As you read the replies in this thread, you will likely be confused. There are two different points of view regarding verbals (gerunds, participles, and infinitives). The traditional view holds these verbals to be parts of speech other than verbs. In that view, your sentence has only one clause.
In a different viewpoint, these verbals function as non-finite verbs in non-finite clauses. In that view, there are two clauses in your sentence, one finite and one non-finite.
I prefer the first approach. In that system:
they = subject
made = verb
us = indirect object
translate = a bare infinitive acting as the complement/direct object of the verb
an English manuscript = the direct object of the verbal "translate".
[Verbals maintain the ability to take objects and adverbial modifiers.]
IMO opinion, the co-existence of these two viewpoints just causes confusion for learners, but I suspect that the two will be around together for a long time.