Hi, Bill,

 

Believe me, I never doubted your knowledge.  I would be interested to know your take on the command infinitive though.

 

Pax,

Clint

 

 

 

Clint:

 

Mea maxima culpa (profunda culpa?) on the infinitive glitch. I really do know better. Honest! – Bill Spruiell

 

 

Hi, Bill,

 

In this example, I would have to go with the compound preposition since there is no verb following the “to” but rather a noun, “lack.”  I read “due to a lack” as a prepositional phrase analogous to “due to illness” in a sentence like, “He missed work due to illness.”

 

Regarding the command infinitive, I generally consider it as part of the finite verb phrase.  Compare “you are to do the homework” with “you will do the homework” where “will” can substitute for “are to.”  “I have to pay my bills” = “I must pay my bills.”  “She is going to leave soon” = “She will leave soon.”  And so it goes.

 

Best,

Clint

 

 

 

The students in one of my (college) grammar classes are starting to analyze text from “naturally-occurring” sources (as opposed to textbook examples) and bringing in sentences that stump them so we can discuss them in class (and so I can repeatedly notice that English is weird, which anyone who teaches grammar needs to be reminded of as often as possible).  A recent example involved a construction like the following (something like this may have come up on the list before, but if so, it was long enough ago that it’s not in my saved folder; apologies if it is indeed repetition):

 

                These problems were due simply to a lack of water in the surrounding area.

 

I could think of two analyses off the bat:

 

(1)          “due” is an adjective being modified by an infinitive phrase (this is how I usually deal with “able to…” etc.

 

(2)          “due to” is a compound preposition, analogous to “because of.”

 

I used the fact that “simply” is wedged between “due” and “to” to argue for version #1, since there’s no parallel example that would involve “because simply of.”

 

But… I later realized that examples like the following don’t sound that strange:

 

                We canceled the game because – and only because – of the weather.

 

Does that example strike y’all (you’ns, you guys, youse) as possible, or have I done the usual linguist trick of cogitating myself into a corner? I also have to figure out what to do with “command infinitives” like “You are to do the homework”…

 

Thanks – Bill Spruiell

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