Janet,

I think that your explanation of participle and infinite phrases as 
non-finite  clauses is clear, and I know that perhaps the majority of 
linguists on our list agree with you.  And, yes, because those verb 
phrases are reduced clauses, we can call them clauses.

But I prefer to reserve "clause" for the traditional "subject + 
predicate."  First, the work that I do is mainly for students who are 
applying their knowledge of sentence grammar to their own writing or 
to the teaching of others. It's very practical to be able to define a 
sentence and discuss its possibilities and its punctuation on the 
basis of  clauses--the subject + predicate kind.  And it's very 
useful to discuss all the possibilities for expanding sentences with 
various kinds of phrases, both verb phrases and others, and various 
dependent clauses.

I also have to dissent somewhat from the notion that "Running" in 
your example doesn't make the grade as a clause because it has no 
other "clause elements."  But doesn't the fact that "run" is 
intransitive and doesn't need any other  elements to be a grammatical 
sentence make a difference? The children are running.  If your 
example had been "Running regularly is good for you" or "Running 
fast. . .", would that make a difference? And in your example "To 
know him is to love him," isn't "to know him" also a non-finite 
clause?  So you would analyze that as three clauses, right?

For purposes of pedagogy--the kind of teaching that I think should be 
going on in language arts classes of middle school and high school--I 
think structural grammar is the logical choice.

Martha

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