bluebonnetgirl Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 (edited) My son is working through Richbaub's Middle School Grammar, and there are some exercises where he has to write sentences that include certain components. The exercise asked him to write one sentence that includes one verb and two subjects where both subjects are personal pronouns. He wrote this sentence: He and she went to see the latest iPhone. I know he got the personal pronouns right, but is "went to see" a verb phrase? Or is "went" the verb and "to see the latest iPhone" a prepositional phrase? If the former is the correct analysis, he needs to rewrite the sentence so that it only has one verb, not a verb phrase. It's early and I'm still on my first cup of coffee, but my brain is not able to discern which is the correct analysis. Any help from the hive? Edited September 22, 2016 by bluebonnetgirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanabug Posted September 20, 2016 Share Posted September 20, 2016 "To see" would be an infinitive, acting as a noun, I think. Lana 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucy the Valiant Posted September 21, 2016 Share Posted September 21, 2016 He and she went to see the latest iPhone. He & she = subjects went = verb to see = adverbial infinitive (describing the verb, answering the question "where?") the latest iPhone = the adverbial infinitive's retained object 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluebonnetgirl Posted September 22, 2016 Author Share Posted September 22, 2016 Thank you. Different opinions...hmm. His writing teacher said that "to see the latest iPhone" is a prepositional phrase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 Thank you. Different opinions...hmm. His writing teacher said that "to see the latest iPhone" is a prepositional phrase. a) She is wrong b) This is why we study Latin :closedeyes: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 He and she went to see the latest iPhone. He & she = subjects went = verb to see = adverbial infinitive (describing the verb, answering the question "where?") the latest iPhone = the adverbial infinitive's retained object :iagree: :iagree: :iagree: Thank you. Different opinions...hmm. His writing teacher said that "to see the latest iPhone" is a prepositional phrase.:" "to" is often a preposition, but not when it is connected to a verb this way. A prepositional phrase is basically a preposition + a noun (the object of the preposition). If "to" is (wrongly) interpreted as a preposition here, this particular phrase "to see the latest iPhone" would be a Preposition + Verb + Noun, which just isn't correct. Instead, "to see" is an infinitive, and "the latest iPhone" is the object receiving the "seeing". Whether or not the sentence has "only one verb" is an interesting question. If by "verb" you mean a part of *speech* - then the sentence clearly has two words whose parts of speech are both "verb" - "went" and "to see". If, on the other hand, by "verb" you mean a part of the *sentence* - then the sentence only has a one verb - "went". The other word that is a verb (by part of speech) is actually acting like an adverb. If my student could analyze the sentence and make a valid argument to me for it only having one verb, I'd be totally happy with that. If not, then I might have them change it. I say "might" simply because my assumption is that the assignment is actually about proper use of subject pronouns, and by requiring two pronouns and one verb they were trying to make sure students wrote sentences like your DS's (with compound subject pronouns) rather than essentially compound sentences ("He went to the store and she stayed home," with two pronouns and two verbs). I assume they don't care if there are infinitives, gerunds, participles, etc... But without seeing it, I could totally be misunderstanding that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 "to" is often a preposition, but not when it is connected to a verb this way. When studying English grammar, I think it helps to talk about words "functioning as a (some part of speech)" in a given sentence, instead of saying that a word "is a part of speech". This emphasizes that the function is the key thing, and many English words can serve multiple functions. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 Thank you. Different opinions...hmm. His writing teacher said that "to see the latest iPhone" is a prepositional phrase. She needs to study prepositional phrases. "To see" is an infinitive. A prepositional phrase would be "to" plus a noun or pronoun, not "to" plus a verb. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucy the Valiant Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 Function determines classification. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluebonnetgirl Posted September 22, 2016 Author Share Posted September 22, 2016 (edited) This is all very helpful. DS hasn't gotten into adverbial infinitives yet, so I am not going to count this mistake against him, if indeed there was a mistake. Seems like he did the exercise correctly (using only 1 verb, since went is the only word that "acts" like a verb). I suspect that the intent of the exercise was to do as tranquitiy7 mentioned. I don't think the exercise intended that the student would get into deciphering infinitives, lol. Just for my own education though, what about these sentences: I just had to buy that gift for my mother. "Had" is clearly the verb. "Had to get" is NOT a verb phrase, right? "To buy that gift for my mother" is not a prepositional phrase. "to buy" does not function as a verb. "to buy" is an infinitive, which acts as a _______? Or He ran to get the water from the well. "Ran" is the verb "ran to get" is not a verb phrase "to get water from the well" is not a prepositional phrase "to get" is an infinitive acting as a __________? I want to be able to explain this to my son, even though he has not studied infinitives yet. Edited September 22, 2016 by bluebonnetgirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 This is all very helpful. DS hasn't gotten into adverbial infinitives yet, so I am not going to count this mistake against him, if indeed there was a mistake. Seems like he did the exercise correctly (using only 1 verb, since went is the only word that "acts" like a verb). I suspect that the intent of the exercise was to do as tranquitiy7 mentioned. I don't think the exercise intended that the student would get into deciphering infinitives, lol. Just for my own education though, what about these sentences: Purdue's OWL website is a fantastic resource for writing and grammar, and has a good page about infinitives here, which should answer all your questions: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/627/03/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homecool Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Purdue's OWL website is a fantastic resource for writing and grammar, and has a good page about infinitives here, which should answer all your questions: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/627/03/ That is a great resource! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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