This discrepancy between Marylou and Sophie is in the area where semantics and syntax conflict. I wonder about the following observations.
In the sentence "I must go" are we tempted to think that "go" is the object of the verb "must"? (We can ask, "What must you (do)?") Historically, we could probably make a good argument that at some time it was so perceived. What about in the periphrastic version, "I have to go"? Does the infinitive marked by "to" make it clear that maybe we have a complement (object) to the verb "have"? Similarly with some other periphrastic versions of the modals (can - be able to; will - is going to, is about to) , where we have complements to adjectives. At one time this may have been the perception. But as with other formations of the verb, we now have modals as well as helping verbs for the semantic categories established as tense and aspect.
Do the Australians now have a compound verb that works like modal pariphrasis in "try to improve"? Do they want to make "try" a quasi-modal? Perhaps the contrasting colloquial "try and improve", which seems to be an attempt to maintain the original syntactic independence, motivates the new syntactic analysis for "try".
For me the object of "try" is an infinitive phrase serving as a noun phrase and the object of "improve" is a noun phrase. With the phrase "try and improve" the accomplishment is implied. Here the verb "try" is either intransitive or has an undersood object of "something", and the verb "improve" shares the same subject, but has its own object. The existence and the contrast of these two collocations, seems to give "try to improve" the implication that the improvement will in fact occur.
Bruce Despain
>>> [log in to unmask] 08/03/01 05:55AM >>>
`Mary is trying to improve the condition of her house':
There is no question in the above sentence of the verb's being anything more or less than `is trying to improve', nor of its object's being anything other than `the condition of the house'. `Mary', the subject of this active-voice verb, is not acting upon `to improve the condition of her house'; she is acting upon `the condition of her house'.
Analysis of this sentence must note that it contains an active-voice verb, and that the characteristic of an active-voice verb is that its subject acts upon its object: Its subject names its actor, and its object the acted-upon. `To improve the condition of her house' does not name the acted-upon. This sequence cannot, therefore, be the object of this sentence, direct or indirect.
This really is a very basic exercise in part-of-speech recognition.
Sophie Johnson
at ENGLISH GRAMMAR TUTOR
http://www.englishgrammartutor.com/
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----- Original Message -----
From: Marylou Colucci
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:18 PM
Subject: Re: <no subject>
to improve the condition of her house is an infinitive phrase that functions
as the direct object.
Mary is trying what? to improve the condition of her house
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