number of clauses

[sharanbr]

I am going through a book on english grammar.

One of the sentence

"Thousands of drivers like Mr Hughes test themselves on America's hundreds of small dirt tracks, hoping to win $1000, $100, or even just a trophhy"

The author says that this sentence contains just one subject and one verb which are : thousands and test and hence is a simple sentence ..

But isn't win too a verb in the above sentence. I agree with the author when he says this is a simple sentence but his identification of subject and verb seems to be incorrect ..

[baqarah131]

Originally Posted by sharanbr

I am going through a book on english grammar.

One of the sentence

"Thousands of drivers like Mr Hughes test themselves on America's hundreds of small dirt tracks, hoping to win $1000, $100, or even just a trophhy"

The author says that this sentence contains just one subject and one verb which are : thousands and test and hence is a simple sentence ..

But isn't win too a verb in the above sentence. I agree with the author when he says this is a simple sentence but his identification of subject and verb seems to be incorrect ..

Greetings to Chennai, a city I visited and loved.

The problem is that English grammar, as it has always been taught, is based on Latin grammar. And Latin and English are very different languages.

I'd say this is not a simple sentence. In Latin terms, "hoping to win $1000, $100, or even just a trophy" is a subordinate clause, an adverbial clause.
It's subordinate because it depends on the main clause.
It's adverbial because it answers the question "why" they test.

I don't know how traditional grammar would analyze "hoping to win", and I don't really care. To me this is common sense:
The English infinitive is really more like a noun than a verb.
"to win" is the object of hoping, so it's behaving like a noun.
But "to win" as a verb takes the object "$1000..."

As you know, it's often hard to slot English words into categories like noun, verb, adjective, etc.

This isn't meant to be the final answer to your question; I hope others will respond with their opinions.

best wishes
edward

[Buddhaheart]

"Thousands of drivers like Mr Hughes test themselves on America's hundreds of small dirt tracks, hoping to win $1000, $100, or even just a trophy."

The author says that this sentence contains just one subject and one verb which are : thousands and test and hence is a simple sentence ..

COMMENT: The subject is indeed ’Thousands of drivers like Mr. Hughes’ where the head noun is ‘drivers’ and the verb of the predicate is ‘test’.

But isn't win too a verb in the above sentence. I agree with the author when he says this is a simple sentence but his identification of subject and verb seems to be incorrect ..

COMMENT: Yes and no. ‘Win’ as in “I win!” is a verb, a finite one. However, ‘to win’ in your question statement is an infinitive (verb infinite) with his distinct marker ‘to’. An infinitive doesn’t function as a verb although it derives from a verb and is verb-like. It functions more as noun, adverb or adjective than a verb.

‘To win’ is the direct object of the verbal ‘hoping’. It functions as a noun and takes ‘$1000, $100, or even just a trophy’ as its objective complement.

[sharanbr]

Thanks Edward and Buddhaheart for that explanation ..