English verbs selecting Bare forms

[Martin Jansche]

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, James A. Crippen wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Martin Jansche wrote:
>
> > If you search in the North American News corpora
> > (including LA Times, Washington Post, NY Times, and Reuters from
> > 1994/5), you find 11 examples of "try + VP[bse]".  Here's one
> > (emphasis added):
> >
> >   CHICAGO -- The federal government will take control of the Chicago
> >   Housing Authority next week to TRY IMPROVE the often wretched living
> >   conditions inside one of the nation's largest and most troubled
> >   public housing agencies, officials here and in Washington said
> >   Saturday.
>
> It's certainly an example.  I'd have to say that I'd like to see a
> complete collection of such examples from the corpus before I'd go
> admitting it as an actual usage form, even as a nonstandard dialectal
> variant.  But you knew that :).

You asked for it ...

Below are more examples from NAN.  This is a sizable collection and I
doubt that anybody could seriously propose to ignore it.  There is
plenty of data to justify going out with a questionnaire now to try
get to the bottom of this.

I have to retract my earlier (implicit) statement that in "try +
VP[bse]" the only allowable form of "try" is itself the base form.
The examples below also include "trying" a number of times.

Examples follow.


She also tried turn the attention away from herself and back on her
opponent.

``Ridiculous,'' responded Perez, who insists he was only trying get
parents more involved in remedying their children's chronic disruptive
behavior at school -- and in the process bring a semblance of peace
and order to a campus where guns, knives and drugs were not uncommon
when he arrived.

Barry, they charged, is trying present a tough face to Congress by
cutting their pay but is trying to avoid the political blame for doing
so.

The resolution said the Senate would try conduct its investigation in
a way that will not interfere with with Starr's probe.

A few tried avoid the photographs, staring instead at the lawyers and
fighting for composure.

But they largely tried blame the failure to root out Rose's conflicts
of interest on Republican appointees running the federal S & L
regulatory agencies in the late 1980s when Rose was hired.

If he stays true to form, Dole, instead of tossing any chips into the
pot, will try frustrate the potential by taking chips out of it.

The MTA has been trying close a $ 126 million budget deficit and the
fare increases, the first in six years, were designed to generate $ 30
million toward closing the gap.

Another adviser, Nabil Aburdeineh, said that Hamas, which opposes
peace talks with Israel, was trying embarrass the authority and that
Arafat saw the latest incident as ``a direct challenge.''

The cleric, who was already charged, along with others, of conspiring
to murder Mubarak, now also faces the charge of solicitation to
murder, or trying persuade some of his co-defendants to carry out the
killing.

On the final day of a campaign notable for its harsh invective and
political hyperbole, Senator Charles S. Robb and his Republican
challenger, Oliver L. North, crossed Virginia Monday trying paint
their fight for the Senate as a referendum on the future of the
republic.

Frederick W. Devine, the president of the district council, described
Conboy's investigation as ``a witch hunt by someone who is trying make
a name for himself on the union dues of members.''

Smart money managers know that, in reality, Fed is trying protect the
dollar from a big hit in what, in the end, could well turn out be
losing effort to overcome our past mistakes.

Troy Lissimore, the National Park Service superintendent of the King
Historic District, denied that the agency was trying usurp the role of
defining King or his legacy ``because that dream and legacy belongs to
the world.''

Through Shipp's testimony, the prosecution seemed to be trying prove
that Simpson was obsessively jealous of his former wife.

DeLong said his group is trying assess the surgery scientifically.

When Clinton extended an invitation to the White House, Auriemma
concluded his conversation with the First Fan by cracking, ``Well, we
tried get in there when we were playing Georgetown, but I'm glad we'll
be coming through the front door this time.''

Deenise Becenti, a news reporter for the station, said that one night,
she got a call from a woman in Phoenix who was trying contact her
father to tell him of a possible job in her area.

Thursday, Dornan suggested he will wage a mighty struggle to try
restore those virtues in American society.

If there are others in the household, it's also important to establish
some ground rules to protect the person trying get work done.

``I'll be damned if I understand why they didn't come to us when we
were trying settle,'' he said.

``These games meant a lot to me individually and to us as a team
because we are still trying get ourselves together and improve,''
Jordan said.

``We have the right to arm ourselves and protect ourselves and our
family from anyone who tries take away our rights,'' he said.

Then, Neri tried Find People Fast, a trace service based in St. Louis,
Mo.

There simply is not much mutual understanding here, not among the
veterans who opposed each other with knives, grenades and
flamethrowers in the tortured terrain of Okinawa, and not among the
political leaders who try keep trying to assert, in their tortuously
phrased speeches, that everything is okay now.

We recommend that a community do not hesitate to begin trying put
itself back together economically.

The problem comes when agents try get their clients more money than
their slot allows, which would throw the cap out of balance.

Clark is trying catch Haley, his former college teammate at James
Madison who has four Super Bowl rings.

``I don't think the NRA gives a damn about the tragedy at Waco but
rather wants to destroy the ATF because they enforce the law the NRA
despises,'' said Schumer, who at one point waved an military-style
machine gun in the air, as an example of the kind of illegal weapon
that he said the Davidians used against federal agents trying serve a
lawful search warrant on the sect.

The 298-128 vote will open a period of frenetic lobbying by the White
House as President Clinton tries gather enough votes to sustain the
veto he has promised to impose.

He had to be convinced to try track his senior year in high school,
after the track coach watched a football game and pictured the tall
Wishbone quarterback running the 400.

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Three Cubans trying leave their country by
walking across the border to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay were
seriously injured Wednesday when one of them stepped on a land mine,
the Defense Department said.

MANILA, Philippines (Reuter) - The Philippine Supreme Court has
created special courts to try kidnap suspects accused in a wave of
abductions that has terrorized the Chinese-Filipino community,
officials said Wednesday.

As vote nears, Clinton tries bolster grain prices

Jean-Francois Hory, head of the Radical Party which hoped to field
Tapie as a candidate in next year's presidential election, accused
``the aristocracy which confiscated the Republic'' of seizing on a
commercial dispute to try get rid of Tapie.

Brazil is trying up to upgrade its armed forces' aging equipment.

Taleban founder Maulvi Mohammad Umar, in an interview published by a
Pakistani newspaper Sunday, accused Rabbani of trying prolong his
rule by seeking to foil a U.N. peace plan that would hand government
to a neutral interim council.

``There seems to be quite a bit of talk on the scanners tonight that
they may try come after me to arrest me,'' Olson told Reuters in a
telephone interview from his home in Alanson, Mich.

Health officials said nearly 250 medical teams were working in flooded
districts trying avert an epidemic of diarrhoea and other water-borne
diseases.

A spokesman for President Ernesto Zedillo, who was the PRI candidate,
told the Times that Prevoisin was ``just trying send up a smoke screen
to deflect attention from his own legal problems.''

The planned blasts, breaking a three-year embargo on tests by major
nuclear powers apart from China, have caused worldwide protests and
anti-nuclear activists are sailing for the testing site to try disrupt
them.

Brazil farmer in hiding, says police tried kill him

The five-nation contact group trying negotiate a peace deal agreed
that military reprisals should be carried out.


- martin