Primary and Secondary verbs

Verbal concepts naturally divide into two sorts:

PRIMARY—those directly referring to some activity or state, i.e. verbs which can make up a sentence by themselves with appropriate NPs filling the various semantic roles, e.g. I HIT her, She SWAM across the river, He MUNCHED the apple, They WATCHED it. These are lexical verbs in every language.

SECONDARY—those providing semantic modification of some other verb, with which they are in syntactic or morphological construction, e.g. the verbs printed in capitals in I MAY hit her, She TRIED to swim across the river, We STOPPED him munching an apple, I LET them watch it. Some or all of these may be realized as verbal affixes in languages that show a complex morphology. They are likely all to be realized as lexical verbs in languages, like English, which have a relatively sparse morphology.

Various subdivisions can be recognized within the two main divisions of Primary and Secondary verbs in English. We now list these, and the semantic types that correspond to them. We will also consider the verb types one at a time, outlining their semantic and syntactic characteristics.

PRIMARY-A verbs must have NPs (not complement clauses) in subject and object slots. The semantic types with this property are:

MOTION, e.g. run, return, take, pull, throw, fall, spill

REST, e.g. sit, stay, put, hang, surround, hold

AFFECT, e.g. hit, punch, cut, sweep, cover, twist, burn

GIVING, e.g. give, lend, pay, present, donate, exchange

CORPOREAL, e.g. eat, taste, kiss, laugh, sleep, bleed, die

WEATHER, e.g. rain, snow, thunder, hail

COMPETITION, e.g. beat, win, attack, lose, compete

SOCIAL CONTRACT e.g. appoint, govern, manage, join, marry

USING, e.g. use, employ, operate, wear, waste

OBEYING, e.g. obey, process, deal with, grant, perform

These verbs take concrete nouns as heads of their subject and object NPs when used in a literal sense. There are some metaphorical uses of individual verbs that can involve nouns of other types, but these are in the nature of idiosyncratic extensions of meaning, e.g. I hit on a good idea (but not *I punched/cut on a good idea, or even *I hit a good idea), She tasted the joys of victory (but not *She ate/kissed the joys of victory).

PRIMARY-B verbs may have NPs filling subject and object slots but they also allow—as an alternative—a complement clause to fill one of these slots, e.g. I understand my father, I understand that he refused to sign the document; and My father surprised me, That he refused to sign surprised me.

One semantic type may have a complement clause or an NP as subject:

ANNOYING, e.g. please, satisfy, amuse, anger, disgust, surprise

A number of types may have a complement clause as an alternative to an NP in object (or, sometimes, in a post-object) slot:

ATTENTION, e.g. see, hear, notice, discover, watch

THINKING, e.g. think (of/about/over), imagine, assume; know, learn, understand, realize; believe, suspect

DECIDING, e.g. decide (on), choose, resolve, elect

SPEACKING, e.g. shout, state, remark, propose, inform, tell, order, ask, promise, describe

LIKING, e.g. like, love, hate, loathe, prefer, envy

ACTING, e.g. act, behave, copy, imitate; reproduce

HAPPENING, e.g. happen, take place, commit, experience, undergo

There are also two types that may have complement clauses in both A and O slots:

COMPARING, e.g. resemble, differ (from); compare, measure, cost

RELATING, e.g. depend on, relate to, imply, be due to

Note that ATTENTION, ACTING, HAPPENING, COMPARING and RELATING straddle Primary-A and Primary-B, each including some verbs that do—and some that do not—take a complement clause.

The object of a verb from ANNOYING, and the subject of a verb from ATTENTION, THINKING, DECIDING, SPEAKING, LIKING and ACTING (that is, the function which cannot be realized by a complement clause for those types), will generally be a HUMAN noun.

SECONDARY verbs all provide semantic modification of some other verb. That is, in each of Mary continued eating the pudding, Mary wants to eat the pudding, John made Mary eat the pudding, It seems that Mary is eating the pudding, the underlying event is ‘Mary eat the pudding’. Eat is the central verb, from a semantic point of view. But at the level of syntax it is continue, want, make and seem which are predicate head within the main clause, with ‘Mary eat the pudding’ being a complement clause in syntactic relation with this predicate.

There are four different kinds of semantic (and syntactic) link between a secondary verb and the verb it semantically modifies:

SECONDARY-A verbs have the same subject as the verbs they modify, and the same object too, if the verb is transitive. That is, modification by a Secondary-A verb does not involve the addition of any semantic roles. The semantic types with this property are:

MODALS, e.g. will, can, should, might, ought to, must

SEMI-MODALS, e.g. be going to, be able to, have got to

BEGINNING, e.g. begin, start, finish, complete, continue (with)

TRYING, e.g. try, attempt, succeed, fail, practice

HURRYING, e.g. hurry (over/with), hasten (over/with), dawdle (over)

DARING—dare, venture

For the MODALS, syntax is congruent with semantics, since they occur as auxiliary in the same VP as the verb they modify.

A verb from BEGINNING, TRYING, HURRING or DARING must occur as syntactic main verb, with the verb that is semantic focus being predicate head of a TO or ING complement clause, e.g. She stopped hitting him, She attempted to hit him. The complement clause verb may, in certain circumstances, be omitted, yielding a sentence that has the superficial appearance of the BEGINNING, TRYING or HURRYING item being the only verb. Consider

(11) Mary began (cooking/to cook) the pudding at six o’clock

(12) Mary began (eating/to eat) the pudding at six o’clock

The bracketed portion from sentences like (11) and (12) could only be omitted if the addressee could be expected to infer it, on the basis of the contextual knowledge they share with the speaker. If Mary were known to be a cook then Mary began the pudding at six o’clock would be understood in terms of (11). If Mary were known to be a lady who employs a cook and never goes near a stove herself, then it would be understood in terms of (12). If the addressee could not be expected to have this sort of information about Mary, then no omission should be made from (11) or (12).

It is interesting to note that only certain verbs may be omitted after a BEGINNING or TRYING form. We can shorten the following, if the bracketed information—describing typical activities—could be expected to be inferred by the addressee: John finished (making) the bricks before lunch, Mary started (learning) French at fifteen. But we cannot normally omit the complement clause verb from: John finished fetching/counting the bricks before lunch, Mary started liking/forgetting French at fifteen.

Sentences such as John has begun the potatoes and Fred has begun the carrots are each at least five ways ambiguous. John could have begun planting, harvesting, peeling, cooking or eating, and Fred likewise. Now if begin in these two sentences was a simple transitive verb, we would expect the coordination John has begun the potatoes and Fred (has begun) the carrots to be 5  5 = 25 ways ambiguous. It is not—it is only five ways ambiguous. Whatever John is understood to have begun doing to the potatoes, Fred is understood to have begun doing a similar thing to the carrots.

This provides justification for our position that a sentence like John has begun the potatoes has an underlying complement clause verb, which can be omitted when certain linguistic and pragmatic conditions are satisfied. In a coordinate structure, such as John has begun the potatoes and Fred (has begun) the carrots, this omission applies in tandem in the two clauses, omitting verbs that have the same or similar meaning (e.g. peeling from before the potatoes and scraping from before the carrots, since these both refer to modes of preparation).

Further support for this syntactic treatment of BEGING verbs is provided by evidence from passivisation.

SECONDARY-B verbs introduce an extra role, the Principal or the Timer (which is subject of the main verb), in addition to the roles associated with the semantically central verb, which is predicate head within the complement clause, e.g. Jane wants Jim to drive the Saab, Fred dreads Mary’s seeing that photo. However, the subject of the Secondary-B verb is often identical with the subject of the complement clause and the latter is then generally omitted, e.g. Jane wants to drive the Saab, Fred dreads seeing that photo. The semantic types with this property are:

WANTING (with a number of subdivisions), e.g. want, wish (for); hope (for); need, require; expect; intend; pretend

POSTPONING, e.g. postpone, delay, defer, avoid

(In some languages WANTING verbs must have the same subject as the verb they semantically modify; WANTING is then a Secondary-A type.)

The complement clause verb may be omitted after certain WANTING verbs if it has the general meaning ‘get’ (i.e. get, receive, have, etc.). Thus, I want (to get) a rabbit for my birthday, He needs (to get/have) a haircut. Some verbs from this type include a preposition in their basic form, e.g. hope (for), wish (for); this is omitted before a TO complement but retained when immediately followed by an NP, e.g. Fred hoped to receive a slice of your pudding, Fred hoped for a slice of your pudding.

SECONDARY-C verbs must introduce a further role over and above the roles of the complement clause verb. This is subject of the main verb; it is the Causer or Helper role, and is generally HUMAN. Thus, Harry forced Mary to eat the snail. It is unlikely that main clause and complement clause subjects will be identical; if they are, neither can be omitted, e.g. Harry forced himself to eat the snail (not *Harry forced to eat the snail). The types are:

MAKING, e.g. make, force, cause, tempt; let, permit, allow, prevent, spare, ensure

HELPING, e.g. help, aid, assist

SECONDARY-D verbs may optionally add a role (introduced by preposition to) to the roles required by the verbs they modify, e.g. It seems likely (to Mary) that John voted for Roosevelt, and That Chris can’t understand algebra doesn’t matter (to Karen). There are two semantic types with this property:

SEEM, e.g. seem, appear, happen, look

MATTER—matter, count

The to NP marks the person who makes the inference (for SEEM) or who attaches importance to the happening (for MATTER). If it is omitted, then, according to the pragmatic context, the statement of the complement clause will be taken to seem/matter ‘to me’, or ‘to us’ or ‘to everyone’.

Secondary-D verbs take a complement clause in subject slot. Verbs from the SEEM type occur with one of those adjectives that may take a subject complement clause (VALUE, DIFFICULTY, QUALIFICATION and the CLEVER subtype of HUMAN PROPENSITY). There is further discussion of the semantics and syntax of Secondary-D verbs.

Each Secondary verb modifies some other verb. The verb modified may be a Primary verb, or a further Secondary verb—in which case there must be a third verb which it in turn modifies. Thus:

(13) The invalid wants (Sec-B) to eat (Prim-A)

(14) The nurse wants (Sec-B) to try (Sec-A) to force (Sec-C) the invalid to eat (Prim-A)

A Primary-B verb may involve nothing but NPs as arguments, or it can take a complement clause, which can have any kind of Primary or Secondary verb as predicate head, e.g.

(15) John remembered (Prim-B) the swindle

(16) John remembered (Prim-B) Mary’s starting (Sec-A) to like (Prim-B) ordering (Prim-B) her jockey to appear (Sec-D) to try (Sec-A) to win (Prim-A) certain races.

Such a grammatical chain may carry on indefinitely; when it finishes, the final clause must contain a Primary-A verb, or a Primary-B verb with all argument slots filled by NPs.