Timeline for Is infinitival "TO" a preposition?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 8, 2018 at 16:25 | comment | added | Lambie | Ok, that is true. But no one has attempted to explain the difference between the two sentences, which I did. I know marker is a function. The OP's question required providing patterns for both types of utterances, which are very different from each other. And the to operator (I call it an operator) does not require repetition in spoken English in certain circumstances..... | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 16:22 | comment | added | BillJ | @Lambie I didn't say that "I was lied to" was an infinitival. I said that subordinator is a word class (part of speech) and that's the class that infinitival "to" belong in (as in the OP's second example).That was the OP's question. Marker is a function, not a part of speech, as I said in the note in my answer. Subordinator, though, is a POS. And, FYI, in "I did that because they wanted to me to ___ ", the verb phrase is ellipted, but represented by 'gap' as I've shown. | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 16:06 | comment | added | Lambie | Actually, English grammarians have failed to explain how it really works. Yes, it is a syntactical marker but it is also called a preposition. The French grammarian Henri Adamczewski calls to an operator. But his books are not in English...unfortunately. | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 15:53 | comment | added | Lambie | Except "I was lied to" is not an infinitival to. And is a preposition. Also, you didn't explain why one does not need to repeat the noun in sentences like that or the verb in sentences like: they want me to. | |
| Mar 8, 2018 at 9:32 | history | answered | BillJ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |