Verbs

[Pedroski]

Competition: prize: free lunch! ( You have to come to Nanjing to eat it!)

Is it possible to put more verbs together consecutively but still remain syntactically, well, syntactic?

I ought to have been being remembered.

Anybody hungry?

[Soup]

Hello Pedroski (not hungry, but thanks for the offer)

Ex: I ought to have been being remembered.

Modal + Verb + Participle
Ex: could have been seen
Ex: might have been sleeping

The longest verb phrase that we have found so far consists of six verbal elements: / would have liked to have been told less abruptly (Mindt 2000: 89)

Source

[Pedroski]

Then this:
I shall have been being bitten Passive future perfect continuous.

But you beat me anyway!

[Soup]

And then there's,

James, while John had had "had," had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.

Learn more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_w...on_the_teacher.

[Pedroski]

I like that. Reminds me of a saying in Platt Deutsch, the language on the North Coast of Germany, parts of Holland and Poland, and further up the Baltic

Ha ik een haak ha ik haaken kunnen!

This is called catenation, they say:
We agreed to attempt to intend to try to decide to start to stop eating between meals.

Can you imagine the sentence diagram of that?

Whilst I have your attention, Encyclopaedia Soup:

Getting started is the important thing.

Getting a gerund, noun, and started a postpositive adjective?

This comes from an old thread from 2006, never successfully resolved.

[Soup]

[Ex]Getting started is the important thing.

Getting a gerund, noun, and started a postpositive adjective?

Getting started is the important thing. <Subject>
Getting started is the important thing. <Verb>
Getting started is the important thing. <Predicate Nominal>

Right. 'Getting' is a gerund, a verbal noun. We know that because it sits in a subject position and subjects are nouns.

What follows, 'started', is a past participle, not a verb. We know that because English grammar has this rule that there can be only one tense carrying verb per clause proper, and in our example 'is' is that verb:

Ex: Getting started is the important thing. <Verb>

That is the answer gjo123 needed to hear in reference to "Why is it correct to use a past tense verb with a gerund [e.g., Getting started is the important thing]?", the erroneous assumption there being that 'started' is a verb. It's not, and we know why it's not.

As for 'started' functioning as a post-positive adjective, it doesn't. We know that because

(i) they are rare, [and] largely confined to archaic or institutional expressions. Learn more here, and

(ii) post-positive adjectives modify true nouns, not verbals that function as nouns, as is the case with gerunds.

Note that, gerunds house the same semantic characteristics as their verb counterparts, even when they are functioning as nouns. (To function as a noun simply means to sit in a noun slots within the syntax.) The verb phrase get started is doing that here, functioning as a noun:

Ex: Getting started is the important thing. <gerund(ial) phrase>


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Food for Thought

What does 'started' modify here, and why?

Ex: Getting yourself started is the important thing.

[Pedroski]

First things first. Getting started.
Getting is here a (verbal) noun.
started is a Past Participle.
It must be something.
It is not a verb.
You say it is not an adjective, an option that would be open to it.
Can't be an adverb, because adverbs don't work on nouns.
It is not a Determiner, a Preposition, Conjunction, Noun.
I'm running out of word classes! What have I forgotten?

I still say it must be adjectival. Or a ghost!

I'll work on your sentence tomorrow. See you, thanks!

[Soup]

Getting started.

Can't be an adverb, because adverbs don't work on nouns. It is not a Determiner, a Preposition, Conjunction, Noun. I'm running out of word classes! What have I forgotten?

I still say it must be adjectival. Or a ghost!

Adjectives modify nouns. 'Getting' is not a noun, it's a verbal noun; moreover, given the phrase have started, started is a past participle in form, but what is its function? That is the question you are asking.

[Pedroski]

They have started. Present Perfect, started the main verb.
They wanted (to have started by now.) In () Infinitive phrase as Direct object. started an adjective describing the noun to have.

To identify an adjective ask: What kind? How many? How much?

To identify an adverb ask: When? Where? How? Why? How much? Or the adverbial might be used to focus on a sentence element.

(Getting yourself started) is the important thing.

I quote " the passive participle describes nouns that have been the object of the action of the verb."
So 'started' describes 'yourself' the object of 'Getting'.

So is Getting started simply Getting yourself started ellipsed?

If I put Getting moving, then it becomes somewhat easier: I can diagram that easily.

Good Night!

[Soup]

Pedroski,

Your second example, They want to have started by now, rings awkward in my dialect, so I don't get your explanation. Sorry.

___________________________

Yes, to your question about whether the phrase getting started is elliptical for getting <something/someone> started:

Ex: Getting the company started ...
Ex: Getting you started ...

The point being, the gerund getting houses the same semantic properties as its verb counterpart: it takes an object.