Pet peeve

[Peter A. McGraw]

However the debate comes out as to what you call the verb form that comes
after the modal, the actual case I was referring to (the one with the
editor, not the NPR example) involved a perfect tense (or possibly
pluperfect or future perfect--I no longer remember the actual sentence in
question, but I do remember its grammar), so it was not an infinitive by
any definition.  Sorry not to have made that clear in the original message.
For the record, I've always thought of the verb form that follows a modal
as an infinitive--at least until I read Larry's contributions to this
thread.

Peter Mc.

--On Tue, Oct 31, 2000 4:39 PM +0800 Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

> At 4:19 PM -0500 10/31/00, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>>> ... as others will undoubtedly note, split infinitives are
>>>> perfectly acceptable, another 18th c. prescriptivism surviving too
>>>> long.  In "would change", by the way, "change" is an infinitive.
>>>> Modals take unmarked infinitives.  The "to" is not what makes a
>>>> form an infinitive.  It's just one way of marking that status. ...
>>
>>> Well, that's really a question of definition. ...
>>
>> The Merriam-Webster English usage dictionary says (in an extended
>> discussion):
>>
>> "... _to_ is only an appurtenance of the infinitive, which is the
>> uninflected form of the verb. In many constructions the infinitive is
>> used alone ...
>>
> So according to this practice, the subjunctives in "I demand that he
> leave" or "If it be treason" are really infinitives?  And when
> first-year syntax students learn than modals don't govern the
> infinitive (*He could to leave") they're being misinformed?  It's
> certainly not standard practice in linguistics courses and texts to
> take the uninflected but to-less form of a verb following a modal or
> in the "that" complement of a verb like "demand" or "require" to
> constitute an infinitive.  (Another case is "She made me (*to) do
> it".)  Base form/bare verb form (maybe even "infinitive stem") si,
> infinitive no.  Of course, this may just be a dialect split...
>
> larry



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu