Sentences like this were all the rage in transformational linguistics in the 1970s. A derivation (skipping many steps) would have gone something like this:

[X could not say [the children have enjoyed themselves]  ==> (passive)

[[the children have enjoyed themselves] could not be said] ==> (extraposition)

[It could not be said [the children have enjoyed themselves]] ==> (infinitive)

[It could not be said [the children to have enjoyed themselves]] ==> (subject raising)

[The children could not be said [to have enjoyed themselves]]




On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear List,

How would you characterize the verb in the following sentence? What's really going on?
 
      <The children could not have been said to have enjoyed themselves>

It can be changed to <The children did not enjoy themselves>, but also to <Nobody could have said that the children enjoyed themselves>. The verb has elements of passive and perfect. What is the infinitive phrase doing?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Scott Woods

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