My feeling, for what it's worth, is that like many linguists Craig has gone directly to the semantics to understand the "semi-auxiliary" construction. Being aware of the semantics is very important in making the distinctions between the various syntactic structures, but should not mislead us. The structures are there for reasons in their own right and not simply historically. For example, the construction in "he ought to go" is a combination of a verb (preterite form of "owe") with a complement (direct object in the form of an infinitive phrase introduced by "to"). The meaning of "ought" is certainly not a past tense, no more than the usual meaning of "must." Similarly the meaning of the direct object complement is not the same as many other direct objects. But it seems clear enough that the infinitive complement after "ought" is very similar in its force as the "bare" infinitive after "must." Hence, they are called "semi-auxiliary."
The tense in "was supposed to" is past because of the form of the auxiliary "was." The "supposed" is a participle in a passive construction. The infinitive phrase is a retained object of this construction. The passive voice in this construction seems to be akin to that of the deponent verbs in Latin, where there was a disconnect between the form and meaning of their constructions. The infinitive as direct object has a number of origins and a number of interpretations.
Bruce
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 11:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: (was: Lester's text in the classroom) (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Janet,
I have wrestled with this for some time.
I currently see the phrasal verbs that seem like paraphrases of currently accepted modals as auxiliaries (and as modal.) You have one example in your sentence. ("Am going to". It can be seen as a paraphrase of "will")
He ought to go. He must go.
He is able to go. He can go.
He is supposed to go. He should go.
He has to go. He must go.
These seem to allow us to combine modal notions (He ought to be able to go is OK, but he must can go is not) and occasionally modals plus tense. ("He was supposed to go" "He is supposed to go." Much more flexible than "must").
Verbs like need,want, hope, desire (which can often function as nouns and /or have close noun counterparts) seem to differ in a couple of ways. They focus on internal motivation rather than external (obligation, responsibility, desirability [from outside]), or just plain old epistemic judgment about likelihood of occurrence. The infinitive complements (I would call them that) also carry over to the noun versions. "He hopes to study. His hope to study...She needs to study. Her need to study...)
There's another group associated with beginning, starting, ceasing, continuing that take these complements as well. (And trying?) "He has started to..."
I am wrestling with how much these participate in the grounding system of the clause--epistemic and deictic judgment help us understand the speaker's attitude about the desirability, likelihood and so on (subtly nuanced) of the process under focus. These in effect "ground" the process within a discourse context. So from this functional perspective, want to, need to and so on might, as grounding elements, be taking on an auxiliary like role, hence our confusion about exactly where to place them. They represent the internal motivation toward the occurrence of a process.
I feel like it's hard for me to post to the list these days because I am in a different place and not quite settled with it yet. But this one comes close to home. These thoughts are very much work in progress.
Craig
Castilleja, Janet wrote:
Hello
In the following sentence: you are going to need to pay close attention,
would you classify 'to pay close attention' as a subjectless infinitive
clause functioning as a direct object?
I was tempted to see 'need to' as a type of semi-auxiliary, but I
checked Quirk et al. They (I think) would analyze it as above. Is that
the consensus? Is there much argument about semi-auxiliaries?
Janet
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