I really appreciate Martha and Johanna's discussion on main,
independent, and matrix clause.  That has been very useful.

There are real problems, even from a teaching perspective, on using the
term infinitive phrase and non-finite (or non-tensed) clauses.

I recognize there is a (centuries?) long tradition of the term
infinitive phrase, but I suggest there is real pedagogical value in
thinking of them
as clauses.

Carol Chomsky's dissertation investigated kids responses to the following.

Barbie is blindfolded.  A child is asked, "Is Barbie hard to see or easy
to see. "

Most kids up to about eight answer:  Barbie is hard to see.

If we assume "hard to see" is a clause, we have a very good
interpretation of the difference between the
child's interpretation of "hard to see" and a competence adult's
interpretation of hard to see.

For the child who describes a blindfolded Barbie as "Barbie is hard to
see," the child is interpreting the clause
(marked by [] and b is the subject of the infinitive and that is a place
which refers to Barbie.

1) Barbie is hard [b  to see]

Of course, for competent adults the representation is (PRO is a "silent"
pronoun referring to anyone and b is the place which refers to Barbie).

2) Barbie is hard [PRO to see b]

In other words, the clause interpretation allows us to say that for a
child who says a blindfolded Barbie is hard to see Barbie is
interpreted as also being the subject of  "to see".  For the competent
adult, Barbie is interpreted as the object of  "to see".

I have never taught little kids, so I have no idea whether this is a
confusion in their writing.  I have taught competent non-native speakers
who
have the child interpretation as discussed above.

I don't know how to explain the child interpretation (or non-native
speaker interpretation)  without seeing the infinitive construction as a
clause.

Martha asks:

>(Does anyone discuss deep and surface structure these
>days?)
>

I don't think so.  In a recent paper, Chomsky (2000)  cites the
following kind of sentence:

1) Gore seems to have been elected.  (Chomsky used Clinton.)

Gore is not only the "subject" of the matrix clause, but for purposes of
interpretation must also be understood as the object of  elect.
It is for purposes of interpretation that the generative tradition
claims that all native speakers have an abstract (deep structure?)
representation in which
Gore is the object of elect.  I  prefer abstract representation over
deep structure.  I have no idea how a theory without such a concept
(whatever its name) can explain how Gore is related to elect.

Bob Yates

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