Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Chapter 1 - Grammatical Foundations: Words

This distinction is traditionally called a Case distinction, which has to do with the
forms that certain nominal arguments appear in. In English there are not many Case
distinctions to be seen as it is only the pronouns which have Case forms, but in other
languages there can be more such distinctions made (think of Hungarian János, Jánost,
Jánosnak, etc.). The he form of the pronoun (similarly, she, I, we, they) is called the
nominative case form, while the him form (her, me, us, them) is the accusative case
form. Note, finite clauses must have nominative elements in the relevant position,
whereas, if the position is filled at all in non-finite clauses, it must be by an accusative
element:

(138) a I think [that him saw me]
b I was anxious [for he to see me]

We can also see a difference between the clause types in terms of the word that
introduces them, the complementiser. For the finite clause, the complementiser must
be that and for this kind of non-finite clause, the complementiser must be for:

(139) a I think [for he saw me]
b I was anxious [that him to see me]

Finally, finite clauses can stand as the main sentence, in which other embedded
sentences can appear. A non-finite clause is always an embedded clause:

(140) a he saw me
b *him to see me

Returning to the modal auxiliaries, note that these can only appear in finite clauses:

(141) a I think [that he could see me]
b *I was anxious [for him to could see me]

There are two points of interest. First, when a modal does appear in a finite clause, the
verb does not appear in its finite (tensed) form:

(142) *I think [that he could saw me]

Second, the non-finite clause contains an element not found in finite clauses which
appears to occupy the same position as the modal in finite clauses:

(143) a I think [that he could see me]
b I was anxious [for him to see me]

Putting these together, we find that there are three elements here which are in
complementary distribution: modals, the non-finite element to and the finite inflections
on verbs. In any clause, wherever one of these appears, the others cannot:

(144) a I think [that he may leave/leaves/to leave]
b I think [that he left/can left/to left]
c I was anxious [for him to leave/must leave/leaves]

We have spoken about complementary distribution patterns before, concluding that
elements that are in complementary distribution should be analysed as instances of the
same category. If this argument applies here, then modals, finite inflections and the