The Study of infinitives as seen as the syntactic structure in the articles of Newsweek

Sugihwanto, Julidya (1998) The Study of infinitives as seen as the syntactic structure in the articles of Newsweek. Bachelor thesis, Petra Christian University.

Abstract

In English, verbs can take different forms, such as verb forms related to the use of tenses, the -ing form, and infinitives. This thesis deals with one of the verb forms, the infinitives, as they occur in three Newsweek articles. In this thesis, this problem is elaborated in terms of the research questions : the syntactic structures in which the infinitive verbs occur, the syntactic functions of the infinitives, and types of infinitives and syntactic functions which are predominant. The infinitives are analyzed in terms of their functions. Following Nelson Francis (1958 : 292), there are four types of syntactic structures: structure of modification, structure of predication, structure of complementation, and structure of coordination. There are two types of infinitives, infinitives with to and infinitives without to. The findings reveal that predominantly infinitives with to, which function as verbal elements, are found in the structure of complementation. In the structure of modification, infinitives without to mostly occur and function as heads. Semantically, infinitives have the same pattern as finite verbs in normal sentences in a sense that they function as verbal elements which go with their subjects.

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