Elements of sentence structure – 171
means ‘limited’ or ‘restricted’. Perhaps the easiest way to recognise
whether a verb is finite is to see whether it is limited in respect of its
tense – past, present or future. The non-finite (infinitive) form with ‘to’
(e.g. to nail) is tenseless. In this sentence ‘to nail’ is part of the nominal
referring expression and has nothing to do with the predicate:
To nail the Ninety-Five Theses on the Wittenberg Chapel door was a
calculated political act.
Like the ‘to’ infinitive the ‘-ing’ form of the verb (e.g. nailing) is nonfinite unless it is preceded by certain auxiliary verbs that do carry
tense. These auxiliaries are forms of the verb ‘be’ (am, is, are, was,
were), the verb ‘have’ (has, have, had) and the so-called modal verbs
(e.g. shall–should, will–would, can–could, may–might, must, ought).
In Figure 6 there is no tense in the ‘nailing’ of the referring nominal,
whilst ‘took place’ in the predicating verbal is in the past tense. It
is the absence of a predicating verbal carrying tense in the second
‘sentence’ below which makes it unacceptable in formal academic
English:
In 1517 Martin Luther performed a calculated political act. Nailing his
Ninety-Five Theses to the Chapel door in Wittenberg.
To be able to discriminate between these two major constituents of
a simple declarative sentence – the referring nominal and the predicating verbal with its finite verb marked for tense – is absolutely
necessary if you are to follow some of the complications and exceptions introduced below. It is also necessary if you are to avoid the
kinds of common confusion we shall examine later in this chapter.
The reason for this is simply that many of the choices of vocabulary
and grammatical structure you make in the referring nominal determine the choices available to you in the predicate (or vice versa). If
these choices do not match, your writing becomes ungrammatical and
confused.
means ‘limited’ or ‘restricted’. Perhaps the easiest way to recognise
whether a verb is finite is to see whether it is limited in respect of its
tense – past, present or future. The non-finite (infinitive) form with ‘to’
(e.g. to nail) is tenseless. In this sentence ‘to nail’ is part of the nominal
referring expression and has nothing to do with the predicate:
To nail the Ninety-Five Theses on the Wittenberg Chapel door was a
calculated political act.
Like the ‘to’ infinitive the ‘-ing’ form of the verb (e.g. nailing) is nonfinite unless it is preceded by certain auxiliary verbs that do carry
tense. These auxiliaries are forms of the verb ‘be’ (am, is, are, was,
were), the verb ‘have’ (has, have, had) and the so-called modal verbs
(e.g. shall–should, will–would, can–could, may–might, must, ought).
In Figure 6 there is no tense in the ‘nailing’ of the referring nominal,
whilst ‘took place’ in the predicating verbal is in the past tense. It
is the absence of a predicating verbal carrying tense in the second
‘sentence’ below which makes it unacceptable in formal academic
English:
In 1517 Martin Luther performed a calculated political act. Nailing his
Ninety-Five Theses to the Chapel door in Wittenberg.
To be able to discriminate between these two major constituents of
a simple declarative sentence – the referring nominal and the predicating verbal with its finite verb marked for tense – is absolutely
necessary if you are to follow some of the complications and exceptions introduced below. It is also necessary if you are to avoid the
kinds of common confusion we shall examine later in this chapter.
The reason for this is simply that many of the choices of vocabulary
and grammatical structure you make in the referring nominal determine the choices available to you in the predicate (or vice versa). If
these choices do not match, your writing becomes ungrammatical and
confused.