Secondary-D types

Secondary-D verbs are all intransitive and take a complement clause in subject slot. They may take one role additional to those of the complement clause; this is the Arbiter, which is marked by the preposition to, e.g. That John should be promoted ahead of Dick seemed wrong (to Mary), That John should be promoted ahead of Dick didn’t matter (to Mary).

Statement of the Arbiter is often omitted and a Secondary-D construction then appears to have no roles beyond those of the complement clause verb. But some Arbiter is always implied and will be understood by listeners—according to pragmatic context—as being the speaker(s)—i.e. to me, to us—or else all rational or like-minded people—e.g. to everyone.

Verbs from this type (seem, appear, look, sound, feel and happen) have two distinct modes of syntactic use. In the first they occur with an adjective—or adjectival phrase—as a kind of copula. In the second they may be used without any adjective.

When a SEEM verb is followed by an adjective this indicates that the Arbiter thinks—in a certain way (specified by the SEEM verb)—that the adjective is applicable to the event or state described by the complement clause, in subject slot.

SEEM verbs occur with just those adjectives that may take a complement clause in subject slot, i.e. VALUE, DIFFICULTY, QUALIFICATION and the CLEVER subtype of HUMAN PROPENSITY. Instead of the copula be we can have either seem to be or else just seem. Thus, with the VALUE type, John’s having resigned was/seemed to be/seemed most odd, That John hit his grandmother is/seems to be/seems out of character; with a DIFFICULTY adjective, It is/ seems to be/seems hard for Mary to operate our mower, Our mower is/seems to be/seems hard to operate; with QUALIFICATION adjectives, It is/seems to be/ seems definite that the King will visit, It is/seems to be/seems normal for no one to work on Christmas Day, John is/seems to be/seems likely to win; with a CLEVER adjective, It was/seemed to be/seemed very stupid of John (for him) to enter without knocking.

Seem (to be) can replace the copula in every construction open to an adjective that takes a complement clause in subject slot (except in frame (iii) with the CORRECT subtype of QUALIFICATION, in which the subject of an extraposed complement clause is raised to fill main clause subject slot, e.g. John was correct to stand when the bishop entered, but not *John seemed (to be) correct to stand when the bishop entered).

The second syntactic usage of SEEM verbs is in what has the appearance of an extraposed THAT complement, and what could be a special variety of Judgement TO construction:

(1a) It seems that Mary found the body

(1b) Mary seems to have found the body

Sentence (1a) has a very similar meaning to a seem-plus-adjective construction like:

(2) It seems (to be) true/(to be) correct/to be the case that Mary found the body

Sentence (2) is a genuine example of a THAT complement clause extraposed from subject position—we can have, with no extraposition, That Mary found the body seems (to be) true/(to be) correct/to be the case.

The fact that (1a) is a construction distinct from (2) is shown by the non-acceptability of the THAT clause in subject slot, i.e. *That Mary found the body seems.

The syntactic and semantic relations between (1a) and (1b) are parallel to those between the THAT complement construction in (3a) and the Judgement TO construction in (3b):

(3a) John knew that Mary was the murderer

(3b) John knew Mary to be the murderer

Sentence (1a) simply involves a THAT complement clause and the verb seem. A THAT clause must include a subject, and so Mary could not be moved out of the complement clause to replace the impersonal subject it. But a TO clause does not have to include an overt subject, and in (1b) we do, effectively, get Mary replacing the it.

After verbs like think, consider and imagine, the to be of a Judgement TO complement may be omitted, e.g. John thought her (to be) stupid. Exactly the same omission is possible after seem, e.g. Mary seemed (to be) stupid. It appears that, following seem, to be can be omitted before an adjective or NP which makes a judgement, e.g. He seems (to be) good, He seems (to be) a good doctor, He seems (to be) an idiot; but to be cannot be omitted before an NP that does not involve a judgement—He seems to be a doctor, but not *He seems a doctor.

There are two alternative constructions, one with as if and the other— occurring only in colloquial varieties of English—with like in place of to be, together with pronominal repetition of the main clause subject and a following copula, e.g. John seems like/as if he’s hitting Mary/hated by all his staff/stupid.

Seem is used when the Arbiter is not fully certain whether the adjectival description is appropriate, or whether the statement of the complement clause in a construction like (1a) or (1b) is correct—perhaps when there is not quite enough evidence. Appear has the same syntactic possibilities and a very similar meaning, but may imply ‘can be observed by me’ in contrast to seem ‘can be inferred by me’.

Look, sound and feel have similar grammar and meaning to seem and appear. Look is, like appear, often used when the Arbiter’s evidence is visual observation, but it may also be employed whatever the nature of the evidence. Feel is most often used when the Arbiter has an intuition or other mental impression about something, and sound when the evidence is aural. Thus we get It seems/sounds strange that John gave his car away, John looks/seems likely to be sacked, It feels/seems strange that we may never see him again. These three verbs are seldom followed by to be; they are used a lot in like/as if constructions, e.g. John looks/sounds like/as if he’s seen a ghost.

We mentioned the intransitive use of some transitive ATTENTION verbs, e.g. It sounds good, She looks pretty, It feels soft. These could be treated as instances of the SEEM sense of the verbs, e.g. That she is pretty looks (to be) true is a fair if awkward paraphrase of She looks pretty. But note that taste and smell may also be used intransitively, and these are only very marginally found with meaning and syntax similar to seem.

Happen has a meaning something like ‘it is, in fact, the case’, and may carry the implication of it being somewhat surprising that this is so. It has a similar syntax to seem except that there must always be a following to be, and happen is not found in as if/like constructions. Thus, That John is stupid happens to be true, John happens to be stupid. Happen has a further sense, for which an ACTIVITY noun is subject, e.g. The fight happened because John hit Mary, or The fight just happened (no one started it). Come about has a similar meaning to this sense of happen, e.g. The fight came about because John hit Mary.