Verb or verbal?

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MikeNewYork

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I think calling the infinitive a verb is confusing. That is why the term "verbal" was invented. We say that a complete sentence requires a subject and a verb, not a subject and an infinitive or a gerund.
 
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bhaisahab

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I have moved this post here to a new thread to avoid completely hijacking the OP's post. I have also edited it to make it clear what it is about.
 

MikeNewYork

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Good idea.
 

MikeNewYork

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The word verbal (noun) does not appear in

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002)
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985)
The English Verb (1974)
The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992)
Oxford Modern English Grammar (2011)

As these , particularly the Quirk and H& P are respected and considered authoritative throughout the English-speaking world, I think we can assume that the idea of 'verbals' is not considered all that useful.


It also does not appear in any of the coursebooks or student grammars I have used in my long TEFL career

142 million Google pages disagree. I will go with them over Quirk -- one guy with an opinion.

NO. we say that a complete sentence requires a finite verb and a subject (or at least an implied subject).

To claim that a form that can show tense and aspect [
(to) read, (to) have read, (to) be reading, (to) have been reading)], take a direct object [I want to read that book], and have an implied subject [I want him to read that book] is not some form of verb seems a little perverse to me. I have on my bookshelf nearly every grammar of English published since 1586, and many books on the English verb. All of them examine infinitives in the chapter(s) on the verb.

"We" do not say that. You say that.
 

MikeNewYork

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That's 147,999,999 to go. You can see the problem with your quoted text. If one is not clear about one's terminology, there will always be confusion.
 

MikeNewYork

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I am not reluctant to accept it. I reject it. I don't find it helpful at all.
 

MikeNewYork

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Your experts are your experts. They are not mine. In every field there are people on the fringe. You seem to prefer those. I value the traditional views. You are free to disagree. The English language and its teaching went on for a long time before your experts came. I don't care if you take my views seriously. For you to say that "verbal" is not accepted in the face of over 100 million hits is laughable.
 

MikeNewYork

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Quoting individuals has no affect on my opinion. So don't bother. Grammar is a system that hangs together if it is consistent. There are no scientific tests or proofs. Therefore, it is all about individual analysis and opinion. You keep trying to prove what is not provable. I am perfectly happy with the concept of verbals versus verbs. Evidently you are not. I can live with that.
 

MikeNewYork

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I don't really care about your problems. We argue about terminology, which is not owned by anybody. Certainly I am expressing my opinion. So are you. You say that your are speaking for the majority and I seriously doubt that. You talk about studying grammar as if there were some tablets handed down from a mountain. There were not. What do they study other than the opinions of others? This is not science. I don't need Quirk's terminology.
 

Tdol

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I will go with them over Quirk -- one guy with an opinion.

To be fair, he is not just one guy; he really is one of the authorities. He does carry a lot of weight.

I am with Piscean on this- I see verb at the head of the family and infinitive as a subset.
 

bhaisahab

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I'm with Piscean on this, too.
 

MikeNewYork

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And where does this authority come from?
 

Tdol

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From writing some pretty serious books. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985) ​was the Michael Swan of linguistics, and the other authors carry a lot of weight too. Quirk was working on corpus linguistics before computers were in use. He was one of the founders of descriptive linguistics. He is an authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Quirk
 
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MikeNewYork

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I am with Piscean on this- I see verb at the head of the family and infinitive as a subset.

I don't really disagree with that. That means that an infinitive is not a verb. I see "verb" at the head of the family and verbals as subsets. They include infinitives and participles.
 

MikeNewYork

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Funny you should mention Michael Swan. I have disagreed with him on a number of occasions.
 

Tdol

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I am with Piscean on this- I see verb at the head of the family and infinitive as a subset.

I don't really disagree with that. That means that an infinitive is not a verb. I see "verb" at the head of the family and verbals as subsets. They include infinitives and participles.

Not to me- if you put furniture at the top of the tree, a table is a subset, but it is still furniture.
 

MikeNewYork

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So that means that Swan is infallible? I think not. He is good, but not perfect.
 

MikeNewYork

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"You can't really say that finite forms are verbs but non-finite forms are not."

Of course I can.
 

MikeNewYork

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What I meant was a verbal is not a verb. It is like a partial verb, lacking some verb features.

You call them nonfinite verbs. I call them verbals. The rest is just simply terminology.
 

MikeNewYork

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Nonfinite verbs?

What next? Everlasting verbs?

:lol:
 
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