"To study" a noun or a verb

[ongetz]

Hello!!

In this sentence : To study English is difficult for me.

Is " TO STUDY" a verb or a noun??

If not, What's the function of " To study" here?


Thanks~

 

[TheParser]

Hello!!

In this sentence : To study English is difficult for me.

Is " TO STUDY" a verb or a noun??

If not, What's the function of " To study" here?


Thanks~

NOT A TEACHER


What is difficult for me?

To study English.

I believe that we can say that the infinitive phrase (To study English)

is being used as a noun and the subject of the sentence.

 

[Pedroski]

Basically, you just need to relax your ideas a bit: words are divided into general word classes: verbs nouns adjectives adverbs prepositions determiners-- have I forgotten something?-- but these are not rigid hermetically sealed confinements, except maybe for basic prepositons. Words flip classes all the time.

'To study' is here a verbal noun: it has characteristics of a verb, and a noun. As a verb it takes an object, 'English', As a noun it forms a compound noun with another noun 'English'. This compound noun is then described with the adjective 'difficult'.