Examples
The following sentences each contain one finite verb (underlined) and multiple non-finite verbs (bolded):
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- The proposal has been intensively examined today.
- What did they want to have done about that?
- Someone tried to refuse to accept the offer.
- Coming downstairs, she saw the man running away.
In the above sentences, been, examined and done are past participles, want, have, refuse and accept are infinitives, and coming and running are present participles (for alternative terminology, see the sections below).
In languages like English that have little inflectional morphology, certain finite and non-finite forms of a given verb are often identical, e.g.
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- a. They laugh a lot.
- b. They will laugh a lot.
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- a. Tom tried to help.
- b. Tom has tried to help.
Despite the fact that the verbs in bold have the same outward appearance, the first in each pair is finite and the second is non-finite. To distinguish the finite and non-finite uses, one has to consider the environments in which they appear. Finite verbs in English usually appear as the leftmost verb in a verb catena. For details of verb inflection in English, see English verbs.
Read more about this topic: Non-finite Verb
Famous quotes containing the word examples:
“In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
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—G.C. (Georg Christoph)