126 Sentences With "finite verb" | Random Sentence Generator

In these examples, finite verb forms are in bold, non-finite verb forms are in italics and subjects are _underlined_.

The subject is consistently a dependent of the finite verb, whereas the object is a dependent of the lowest non-finite verb if such a verb is present.

Most if not all theories of syntax acknowledge verb phrases (VPs), but they can diverge greatly in the types of verb phrases that they posit. Phrase structure grammars acknowledge both finite verb phrases and non- finite verb phrases as constituents. Dependency grammars, in contrast, acknowledge just non-finite verb phrases as constituents. The distinction is illustrated with the following examples: ::The Republicans may nominate Newt.

In the phrase structure trees, the highest projection of the finite verb, IP (inflection phrase) or CP (complementizer phrase), is the root of the entire tree. In the dependency trees, the projection of the finite verb (V) is the root of the entire structure.

Finite verbs play a particularly important role in syntactic analyses of sentence structure. In many phrase structure grammars for instance those that build on the X-bar schema, the finite verb is the head of the finite verb phrase and so it is the head of the entire sentence. Similarly, in dependency grammars, the finite verb is the root of the entire clause and so is the most prominent structural unit in the clause. That is illustrated by the following trees: ::Finite verb trees 1' The phrase structure grammar trees are the a-trees on the left; they are similar to the trees produced in the government and binding framework.

The central word of a non-finite clause is usually a non-finite verb (as opposed to a finite verb). There are various types of non-finite clauses that can be acknowledged based in part on the type of non-finite verb at hand. Gerunds are widely acknowledged to constitute non-finite clauses, and some modern grammars also judge many to-infinitives to be the structural locus of non-finite clauses. Finally, some modern grammars also acknowledge so-called small clauses, which often lack a verb altogether.

Hungarian verbs have 3 moods: indicative, conditional and subjunctive / imperative. The indicative has a past and non- past tense. The conditional has a non-past tense and a past form, made up of the past tense indicative as the finite verb with the non-finite verb volna. The subjunctive only has a single tense.

A finite verb is a form of a verb that has a subject (expressed or implied) and can function as the root of an independent clause;Concerning the appearance of a subject as an important criterion for identifying finite verbs, see Radford (1997:507f.). an independent clause can, in turn, stand alone as a complete sentence. In many languages, finite verbs are the locus of grammatical information of gender, person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and voice.For similar definitions of the finite verb that point to the finite verb as the locus of tense, mood, etc.

The abessive marker for nouns in Inari Sámi is -táá. The corresponding non-finite verb form is -hánnáá, -hinnáá or -hennáá.

Verbal nouns are morphologically related to verbs, but they are not non-finite verb forms. The non-finite verb forms are forms such as gerunds, infinitives and participle in English. Some grammarians use the term "verbal noun" to mean verbal noun, gerund and noun infinitive. Some may use the term "gerund" to mean both verbal noun and gerund.

See the Non-finite clauses section of that article for verb phrases headed by non- finite verb forms, such as infinitives and participles.

Some interjections can play the same role. Even in English, utterances that lack a finite verb are common, e.g. Yes., No., Bill!, Thanks.

With respect to the host, in OI there was greater enclisis with finite verb forms and proclisis was allowed with aflirmative informai imperatives.

Phrases typically consist of two lexemes, with one acting as the "head-word," defining the function, and the other performing a syntactic operation. The most frequently-occurring lexeme, or in some cases just the lexeme that occurs first, is the "head-word." All phrases are either verb phrases (e.g. Noun + Finite Verb, Pronoun + Non-Finite Verb, etc.) or noun phrases (e.g.

Thus the V2 structure is analysed as :1 Topic element (specifier of CP) :2 Finite-verb form (C=head of CP) i.e. verb-second :3 Remainder of the clause In embedded clauses, the C position is occupied by a complementizer. In most Germanic languages (but not in Icelandic or Yiddish), this generally prevents the finite verb from moving to C. :The structure is analysed as ::1 Complementizer (C=head of CP) ::2 Bulk of clause (VP), including, in German, the subject. ::3 Finite verb (V position) This analysis does not provide a structure for the instances in some language of root clauses after bridge verbs.

UNT has a uniform pattern for building finite subordinate clauses. First, we have a relative pronoun or complementizer which is followed by an ordinary finite verb.

The nexus field contains slots for the finite verb and its arguments and adverbial modifiers. The content field contains the infinite verb, its object and adverbial modifiers.

Many clauses have as their finite verb an auxiliary, which governs a non-finite form of a lexical (or other auxiliary) verb. For clauses of this type, see below.

Non-finite verb forms refer to an action or state without indicating the time or person. Spanish has three impersonal forms: the infinitive, the gerund, and the past participle.

Here, the function of an attributive adjective is played by the phrase wears a hat, which is headed by the finite verb wears. This is a kind of relative clause.

Declarative sentences use V2 word order: the finite verb is preceded by one and only one constituent (unlike in English, this need not be the subject); in Germanic tradition, the position occupied by this constituent is referred to as the Vorfeld 'prefield'. Coordinating conjunctions like und 'and' or aber 'but' precede both the prefield and the finite verb, and so do topicalised elements (similarly to the 'that' in English 'That I don't know'). The prefield is often used to convey emphasis. : : : : Non-finite verbs as well as separable particles are placed at the end of the sentence: : : : In the midfield (the part of the clause between the position of the finite verb and that of the clause-final verb cluster), German word order is highly variable.

The -ing form of a verb has both noun uses and adjectival (or adverbial) uses. In either case it may function as a non-finite verb (for example, by taking direct objects), or as a pure noun or adjective. When it behaves as a non-finite verb, it is called a gerund in the noun case, and a present participle in the adjectival or adverbial case. Uses as pure noun or adjective may be called deverbal uses.

A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammarDependency grammars reject the concept of finite verb phrases as clause constituents, regarding the subject as a dependent of the verb as well. See the verb phrase article for more information.). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects, complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases).

All Northwest Caucasian languages are left-branching, so that the verb comes at the end of the sentence and modifiers such as relative clauses precede a noun. Northwest Caucasian languages do not generally permit more than one finite verb in a sentence, which precludes the existence of subordinate clauses in the Indo- European sense. Equivalent functions are performed by extensive arrays of nominal and participial non-finite verb forms, though Abkhaz appears to be developing limited subordinate clauses, perhaps under the influence of Russian.

However, example a represents a number of Old English clauses with object following a non-finite verb form, with the superficial structure verb-subject-verb object. A more substantial number of clauses contain a single finite verb form followed by an object, superficially verb-subject-object. Again, a generalisation is captured by describing these as subject–verb–object (SVO) modified by V2. Thus Old English can be described as intermediate between SOV languages (like German and Dutch) and SVO languages (like Swedish and Icelandic).

Again, the one finite verb, did, is the root of the entire verb catena and the subject, they, is a dependent of the finite verb. The third sentence has the following dependency structure: ::Nonfinite tree 3 Here the verb catena contains three main verbs so there are three separate predicates in the verb catena. The three examples show distinctions between finite and nonfinite verbs and the roles of these distinctions in sentence structure. For example, nonfinite verbs can be auxiliary verbs or main verbs and they appear as infinitives, participles, gerunds etc.

Most types of verbs can appear in finite or non-finite form (and sometimes these forms may be identical): for example, the English verb go has the finite forms go, goes, and went, and the non-finite forms go, going and gone. The English modal verbs (can, could, will, etc.) are defective and lack non-finite forms. It might seem that every grammatically complete sentence or clause must contain a finite verb. However, sentences lacking a finite verb were quite common in the old Indo-European languages, and still occur in many present-day languages.

Many Native American languages and some languages in Africa and Australia do not have direct equivalents to infinitives or verbal nouns. Instead, they use finite verb forms in ordinary clauses or various special constructions. Being a verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles, converbs, gerunds and gerundives), infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non-finite clause, called an infinitive (infinitival) clause.

Middle Mongol had a slightly larger set of declarative finite verb suffix formsWeiers 1969: Morphologie, §B.II; Svantesson 2003: 166. and a smaller number of participles, which were less likely to be used as finite predicates.Weiers 1969: Morphologie, §B.

Finite verbs in English usually appear as the leftmost verb in a verb catena.Concerning the fact that the left-most verb is the finite verb, see Tallerman (1998:65). For details of verb inflection in English, see English verbs.

The next four trees illustrate the distinction mentioned above between matrix wh-clauses and embedded wh-clauses ::Clause trees 3' The embedded wh-clause is an object argument each time. The position of the wh-word across the matrix clauses (a-trees) and the embedded clauses (b-trees) captures the difference in word order. Matrix wh-clauses have V2 word order, whereas embedded wh-clauses have (what amounts to) V3 word order. In the matrix clauses, the wh-word is a dependent of the finite verb, whereas it is the head over the finite verb in the embedded wh-clauses.

Many languages (such as those with ergative or Austronesian alignment) do not do this, and by this definition would not have subjects. All of these positions see the subject in English determining person and number agreement on the finite verb, as exemplified by the difference in verb forms between he eats and they eat. The stereotypical subject immediately precedes the finite verb in declarative sentences in English and represents an agent or a theme. The subject is often a multi-word constituent and should be distinguished from parts of speech, which, roughly, classify words within constituents.

German and Dutch are considered SVO in conventional typology and SOV in generative grammar. They can be considered SOV but with V2 word order as an overriding rule for the finite verb in main clauses, which results in SVO in some cases and SOV in others. For example, in German, a basic sentence such as "Ich sage etwas über Karl" ("I say something about Karl") is in SVO word order. Non-finite verbs are placed at the end, however, since V2 only applies to the finite verb: "Ich will etwas über Karl sagen" ("I want to say something about Karl").

"Socrates is (or: was) wise". (Subject and predicate adjective of the finite verb in nominative case) Some actual examples from classic Greek literature: :: .Demosthenes, 25 (In Aristogitonem 1). 93 :: [the most-wicked and ungodly called theACC mishapsACC chastenINF] propl 3rd say- they.

Inversion in Old English sentences with a combination of two verbs could be described in terms of their finite and non-finite forms. The word which participated in inversion was the finite verb; the verb which retained its position relative to the object was the non-finite verb. In most types of Modern English clause, there are two verb forms, but the verbs are considered to belong to different syntactic classes. The verbs which participated in inversion have evolved to form a class of auxiliary verbs which may mark tense, aspect and mood; the remaining majority of verbs with full semantic value are said to constitute the class of lexical verbs.

Parmigiano expresses negation in two parts, with the particle n attached to the verb and one or more negative words (connegatives) that modify the verb or one of its arguments. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with n after the subject and the negative adverb after the conjugated verb, For example, the simple verbal negation is expressed by n before the finite verb (and any object pronouns) and the adverb miga after the finite verb. That is a feature it has in common with French, which uses ne and pas. Pas derives from the Latin passus "step", and miga "piece of bread" also derives from a small quantity.

The following sentences each contain one finite verb (underlined) and multiple nonfinite verbs (in bold): ::The proposal _has_ been intensively examined today. ::What _did_ they want to have done about that? ::Someone _tried_ to refuse to accept the offer. ::Coming downstairs, she _saw_ the man running away.

Since dependency grammars view the finite verb as the root of all sentence structure, they cannot and do not acknowledge the initial binary subject-predicate division of the clause associated with phrase structure grammars. What this means for the general understanding of constituent structure is that dependency grammars do not acknowledge a finite verb phrase (VP) constituent and many individual words also do not qualify as constituents, which means in turn that they will not show up as constituents in the IC-analysis. Thus in the example sentence This tree illustrates IC-analysis according to the dependency relation, many of the phrase structure grammar constituents do not qualify as dependency grammar constituents: ::IC-tree 2 This IC-analysis does not view the finite verb phrase illustrates IC-analysis according to the dependency relation nor the individual words tree, illustrates, according, to, and relation as constituents. While the structures that IC-analysis identifies for dependency and constituency grammars differ in significant ways, as the two trees just produced illustrate, both views of sentence structure are acknowledging constituents.

One or more nonfinite verbs may be associated with a finite verb in a finite clause: the elements of a verb catena, or verb chain. Because English lacks most inflectional morphology, the finite and the nonfinite forms of a verb may appear the same in a given context.

Further, there is considerable debate concerning whether SLI is actually a language disorder or whether its aetiology is due to a more general cognitive (e.g. phonological) problem.Norbury, C., Bishop, D. V. M., & Briscoe, J. (2001). Production of English finite verb morphology: A Comparison of SLI and mildmoderate hearing impairment.

Gapping occurs in coordinate structures. Redundant material that is present in the immediately preceding clause can be "gapped". This gapped material usually contains a finite verb. Canonical cases have a true "gap" insofar as a remnant appears to the left and to the right of the elided material.

Norwegian syntax is predominantly SVO with the subject of the sentence coming first, the verb coming second, and the object after that. However, like many other Germanic languages, it follows the V2 rule, which means that the finite verb is invariably the second element in a sentence. For example: •" _Jeg_ spiser fisk i dag" ( _I_ eat fish today) •"I dag spiser _jeg_ fisk" (Today, _I_ eat fish) •" _Jeg_ vil drikke kaffe i dag" ( _I_ want to drink coffee today) •"I dag vil _jeg_ drikke kaffe" (Today, _I_ want to drink coffee) Regardless of which element is placed first, the finite verb comes second. Attributive adjectives always precede the noun that they modify.

Nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of a former case system, particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its syntax is V2 word order, with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence.

Most Syriac verbs are built on triliteral roots as well. Finite verbs carry person, gender (except in the first person) and number, as well as tense and conjugation. The non-finite verb forms are the infinitive and the active and passive participles. Syriac has only two true morphological tenses: perfect and imperfect.

The CP (complementizer phrase) structure incorporates the grammatical information which identifies the clause as declarative or interrogative, main or embedded. The structure is shaped by the abstract C (complementiser) which is considered the head of the structure. In embedded clauses the C position accommodates complementizers. In German declarative main clauses, C hosts the finite verb.

Neutral Hungarian sentences have a subject–verb–object word order, like English. Hungarian is a null-subject language and so the subject does not have to be explicitly stated. Word order is determined not by syntactic roles but rather by pragmatic factors. Emphasis is placed on the word or phrase immediately before the finite verb.

The present participle is used to a much lesser extent than in English. The dangling participle, a characteristic feature of English, is not used in Danish. Instead Danish uses subordinate or coordinate clauses with a finite verb, e.g. eftersom han var konge, var det ham, der måtte bestemme, "Being the king, he had the last word".

Do-support is not used when there is already an auxiliary or copular verb present or with non-finite verb forms (infinitives and participles). It is sometimes used with subjunctive forms. Furthermore, the use of do as an auxiliary should be distinguished from the use of do as a normal lexical verb, as in They do their homework.

Unlike the past participles, the present participle is formed from the present stem of the verb, and is formed differently depending on whether the verb is parasmaipada or ātmanepada. The present participle can never substitute for a finite verb. It is also inherently imperfective, indicating an action that is still in process at the time of the main verb.

It is used with the same meaning as the Latin gerundive. In the east African Semitic language Tigrinya, gerundive is used to denote a particular finite verb form, not a verbal adjective or adverb. Generally, it denotes completed action that is still relevant. A verb in the gerundive can be used alone or serially with another gerundive verb.

The main difference that sets apart German sentence structure from that of English is that German is an OV (Object-Verb) language, whereas English is a VO (verb-object) language. Additionally, German, like all Germanic languages except English, uses V2 word order, though only in independent clauses. In dependent clauses, the finite verb is placed last.

German word order is generally with the V2 word order restriction and also with the SOV word order restriction for main clauses. For polar questions, exclamations, and wishes, the finite verb always has the first position. In subordinate clauses, the verb occurs at the very end. German requires a verbal element (main verb or auxiliary verb) to appear second in the sentence.

In examples b, c and d, the object of the clause precedes a non-finite verb form. Superficially, the structure is verb-subject-object- verb. To capture generalities, scholars of syntax and linguistic typology treat them as basically subject-object-verb (SOV) structure, modified by the V2 constraint. Thus Old English is classified, to some extent, as an SOV language.

Along with the infinitive and the present participle, the gerund is one of three non-finite verb forms. The infinitive is a nominalized verb, the present participle expresses incomplete action, and the gerund expresses completed action, e.g. ' bälto wädä gäbäya hedä 'Ali, having eaten lunch, went to the market'. There are several usages of the gerund depending on its morpho-syntactic features.

Word stress generally falls on the first syllable in finite verb forms and on the last syllable in nouns and noun-like words. Examples of where stress does not fall on the last syllable are adverbs like: бале (bale, meaning "yes") and зеро (zero, meaning "because"). Stress also does not fall on enclitics, nor on the marker of the direct object.

Hebrew also produces sentences where the predicate is not a finite verb. A sentence of this type is called משפט שמני , a nominal sentence. These sentences contain a subject, a non-verbal predicate, and an optional copula. Types of copulae include: #The verb הָיָה (to be): ::While the verb to be does have present- tense forms, they are used only in exceptional circumstances.

The discussion here also focuses on finite clauses, although some aspects of non-finite clauses are considered further below. Clauses can be classified according to a distinctive trait that is a prominent characteristic of their syntactic form. The position of the finite verb is one major trait used for classification, and the appearance of a specific type of focusing word (e.g. wh-word) is another.

There are several different word classes that go into making a Maidu sentence, split into the major and the minor classes. The seven major distribution classes are Subject, Object, Possessive, Locative, Finite Verb, Dependent Verb, and Copula. The minor classes are Connectives, Hesitation forms, Emphasis marker, Temporal Absolute, Adverbial Absolute, Interjection, and Question word. All together combinations of words from these classes make sentences.

On such trees, see, for instance, Cowper (1992) and Haegeman (1994). The b-trees on the right are the dependency grammar trees.On such dependency trees, see, for instance, Eroms (2000). Many of the details of the trees are not important for the point at hand, but they show clearly that the finite verb (in bold each time) is the structural center of the clause.

A dependent clause may be finite (based on a finite verb, as independent clauses are), or non-finite (based on a verb in the form of an infinitive or participle). Particular types of dependent clause include relative clauses, content clauses and adverbial clauses. In certain instances, clauses use a verb conjugated in the subjunctive mood; see English subjunctive. Clauses can be nested within each other, sometimes up to several levels.

The first non-finite verb form is the infinitive form (ಭಾವರೂಪ). There are three infinitives, which vary in their uses and their endings. Other than the infinitive, Kannada has two types of participle—an adjectival participle (ಕೃದ್ವಾಚಿ) and an adverbial participle (ಕ್ರಿಯಾನ್ಯೂನ). While the present participle of English can function both adjectivally and adverbially, and the past participle can function only adjectivally, Kannada participles’ functions are quite consistent.

Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the constituency relation of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. Dependency is the notion that linguistic units, e.g. words, are connected to each other by directed links. The (finite) verb is taken to be the structural center of clause structure.

For an overview of dependency grammar structure in modern linguistic analysis, three example sentences are shown. The first sentence, The proposal has been intensively examined, is described as follows. ::Nonfinite tree 1+' The three verbs together form a chain, or verb catena (in purple), which functions as the predicate of the sentence. The finite verb has is inflected for person and number, tense, and mood: third person singular, present tense, indicative.

Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2003. Nonetheless, other than having cognates in their finite-verb morphology and in their words for 'thou' (nhinhi and nyinyi) and 'this' (kanhi and kinyi),Note that Ngan’gityemerri has no nh, and so would expect to have ny where its relatives have nh. they have little vocabulary in common, though their grammatical structures are very similar. It is not clear what could explain this discrepancy.

The approach to predicates illustrated with these sentences is widespread in Europe, particularly in Germany. This modern understanding of predicates is compatible with the dependency grammar approach to sentence structure, which places the finite verb as the root of all structure, e.g.Dependency trees like the one here can be found in, for instance, . ::Predicate tree 2' The matrix predicate is (again) marked in blue and its two arguments are in green.

The circumstantial participle, used as a satellite of another verbal form, is always without the article (i.e. it is put in the predicative position). It is added as a modifier to a noun or pronoun to denote the circumstance(s) under which the action of another verbal form (a finite verb or an infinitive/another participle) takes place. The action of the main verb is the main one.

In linguistics, gapping is a type of ellipsis that occurs in the non-initial conjuncts of coordinate structures.Gapping is limited to coordinate structures; it does not occur independent of coordination, as noted by McCawley (1988:48f.) and Kroeger (2004:35). Gapping usually elides minimally a finite verb and further any non-finite verbs that are present. This material is "gapped" from the non-initial conjuncts of a coordinate structure.

Fourth International Postgraduate Conference on Language and Cognition at the University of Vigo. In 2017 Verspoor's first article was published in which she and her colleagues applied the Hidden Markov Model to simulate language development. She is also noted for her work on language complexity. She proposed the finite verb ratio index to measure general syntactic complexity and the average word length of content words to gauge lexical complexity in second language writing development.

However, the subject is sometimes not said or explicit, often the case in null-subject languages if the subject is retrievable from context, but it sometimes also occurs in other languages such as English (as in imperative sentences and non-finite clauses). A simple sentence usually consists of a single finite clause with a finite verb that is independent. More complex sentences may contain multiple clauses. Main clauses (matrix clauses, independent clauses) are those that can stand alone as a sentence.

An example of an obligatory category in English is the time-tense of verbs, as it is impossible to express a finite verb without also expressing a tense. Brown also intended the language to be completely regular and unambiguous. Each sentence can be parsed in only one way. Furthermore, the syllabic structure of words was designed so that a sequence of syllables can be separated into words in only one way, even if the word separation is not clear from pauses in speech.

This notwithstanding, English, as opposed to German, has very strict word order. In German, word order can be used as a means to emphasize a constituent in an independent clause by moving it to the beginning of the sentence. This is a defining characteristic of German as a V2 (verb-second) language, where, in independent clauses, the finite verb always comes second and is preceded by one and only one constituent. In Questions, V1 (verb-first) word order is used.

The nonfinite verbs been and examined are, except for tense, neutral across such categories and are not inflected otherwise. The subject, proposal, is a dependent of the finite verb has, which is the root (highest word) in the verb catena. The nonfinite verbs lack a subject dependent. The second sentence shows the following dependency structure: ::Nonfinite tree 2+ The verb catena (in purple) contains four verbs (three of which are nonfinite) and the particle to, which introduces the infinitive have.

Another prominent means used to define the syntactic relations is in terms of the syntactic configuration. The subject is defined as the verb argument that appears outside of the canonical finite verb phrase, whereas the object is taken to be the verb argument that appears inside the verb phrase.See for instance Chomsky (1965), Bach (1974:39), Cowper (1992:40), Culicover (1997:167f.), Carnie (2007:118–120). This approach takes the configuration as primitive, whereby the grammatical relations are then derived from the configuration.

In many languages (including English), there can be one finite verb at the root of each clause (unless the finite verbs are coordinated), whereas the number of non-finite verbs can reach up to five or six, or even more, e.g. ::He was _believed_ to _have_ _been_ _told_ to _have_ himself _examined_. Finite verbs can appear in dependent clauses as well as independent clauses: ::John said that he enjoyed reading. ::Something you make yourself seems better than something you buy.

The comparative nominal phrase ἢ ἄλλους σύνδυο shows case agreement with ἐμέ.Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, § 1069 ::Oratio recta/Direct speech form: ἐγὼNOM πλείω χρήματα εἴργασμαι ἢ ἄλλοι σύνδυοNOM [οὕστινας βούλει] τῶν σοφιστῶν. "It is I who have made more money than any other..." Here now the subject ἐγώ of the finite verb εἴργασμαι (a perfect indicative) is emphatically uttered in nominative case; the second part of the comparison, ἢ ἄλλοι σύνδυο, agrees with this in nominative case.

The first verb in such a combination is the finite verb, the remainder are nonfinite (although constructions in which even the leading verb is nonfinite are also possible – see below). Such combinations are sometimes called compound verbs; more technically they may be called verb catenae, since they are not generally strict grammatical constituents of the clause. As the last example shows, the words making up these combinations do not always remain consecutive. For details of the formation of such constructions, see English clause syntax.

According to Castro Alves (2010), a split-S alignment can be safely reconstructed for Proto-Northern Jê finite clauses. Clauses headed by a non-finite verb, on the contrary, would have been aligned ergatively in this reconstructed language. The reconstructed Pre-Proto-Indo-European language, not to be confused with the Proto-Indo-European language, its direct descendant, shows many features known to correlate with active alignment like the animate vs. inanimate distinction, related to the distinction between active and inactive or stative verb arguments.

Gapping (and stripping) is an ellipsis mechanism that seems to occur in coordinate structures only. It usually excludes a finite verb from the second conjunct of a coordinate structure and allows further constituents to also be elided from the conjunct.Concerning the nature of the material that gapping can elide from the non-initial conjuncts of coordinate structures, see Osborne (2019: 361-365). While gapping itself is widely acknowledged to involve ellipsis, which instances of coordination do and do not involve gapping is still a matter of debate.

Negation verbs are often used as an auxiliary type which also carries φ-feature content. This could be visualized for example in the inflectional character of the negation verb while combined with the main verb. This is some sort of tendency by Dryer to place the negation verb before the finite verb. Miestamo researched four different types of negations and proposed a distinction between symmetric negation in which a negative marker is added and asymmetric negation in which beside the added negation marker, other structural changes appear.

In syntax, verb-second (V2) word order places the finite verb of a clause or sentence in second position with a single constituent preceding it, which functions as the clause topic.For discussions of the V2 principle, see Borsley (1996:220f.), Ouhalla (1994:284ff.), Fromkin et al. (2000:341ff.), Adger (2003:329ff.), Carnie (2007:281f.). V2 word order is common in the Germanic languages and is also found in Northeast Caucasian Ingush, Uto-Aztecan O'odham, and fragmentarily in Rhaeto-Romansh Sursilvan and Finno-Ugric Estonian .

The V2 principle regulates the position of finite verbs only; its influence on non-finite verbs (infinitives, participles, etc.) is indirect. Non-finite verbs in V2 languages appear in varying positions depending on the language. In German and Dutch, for instance, non-finite verbs appear after the object (if one is present) in clause final position in main clauses (OV order). Swedish and Icelandic, in contrast, position non-finite verbs after the finite verb but before the object (if one is present) (VO order).

It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by you. It is used in parts of Northern England and in Scots (). Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative), the possessive is thy (adjective) or thine (as an adjective before a vowel or as a pronoun) and the reflexive is thyself. When thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form typically ends in -(e)st (e.g.

Past tense forms express circumstances existing at some time in the past, although they also have certain uses in referring to hypothetical situations (as in some conditional sentences, dependent clauses and expressions of wish). They are formed using the finite verb in its preterite (simple past) form. Certain uses of the past tense may be referred to as subjunctives; however the only distinction in verb conjugation between the past indicative and past subjunctive is the possible use of were in the subjunctive in place of was. For details see English subjunctive.

And lastly, dependent clauses use verb-final word order. However, German cannot be called an SVO language since no actual constraints are imposed on the placement of the subject and object(s), even though a preference for a certain word-order over others can be observed (such as putting the subject after the finite verb in independent clauses unless it already precedes the verb). To say that German is an SVO language would be completely wrong. A sentence such as 'Cäsar besiegte Pompejus' [Caesar defeated Pompey / Pompey defeated Caesar] will always be ambiguous in German.

According to a tradition associated with predicate logic and dependency grammars, the subject is the most prominent overt argument of the predicate. By this position all languages with arguments have subjects, though there is no way to define this consistently for all languages.See Tesnière (1969:103-105) for the alternative concept of sentence structure that puts the subject and the object on more equal footing since they can both be dependents of a (finite) verb. From a functional perspective, a subject is a phrase that conflates nominative case with the topic.

Dependency grammar (DG) can accommodate the V2 phenomenon simply by stipulating that one and only one constituent can be a predependent of the finite verb (i.e. a dependent which precedes its head) in declarative (matrix) clauses (in this, Dependency Grammar assumes only one clausal level and one position of the verb, instead of a distinction between a VP-internal and a higher clausal position of the verb as in Generative Grammar, cf. the next section).For an example of a DG analysis of the V2 principle, see Osborne (2005:260).

In the theory of Generative Grammar, the verb second phenomenon has been described as an application of X-bar theory. The combination of a first position for a phrase and a second position for a single verb has been identified as the combination of specifier and head of a phrase. The part after the finite verb is then the complement. While the sentence structure of English is usually analysed in terms of three levels, CP, IP, and VP, in German linguistics the consensus has emerged that there is no IP in German.

All other syntactic units (words) are either directly or indirectly connected to the verb in terms of the directed links, which are called dependencies. DGs are distinct from phrase structure grammars, since DGs lack phrasal nodes, although they acknowledge phrases. A dependency structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. Dependency structures are flatter than phrase structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages with free word order, such as Czech or Warlpiri.

Concerning the dependency grammar analysis of inversion, see Hudson (1990: 214-216) and Groß and Osborne (2009: 64-66). The following dependency trees illustrate how this alternative account can be understood: ::Subject-auxiliary inversion trees 2 These trees show the finite verb as the root of all sentence structure. The hierarchy of words remains the same across the a- and b-trees. If movement occurs at all, it occurs rightward (not leftward); the subject moves rightward to appear as a post-dependent of its head, which is the finite auxiliary verb.

Nominal sentence (also known as equational sentence) is a linguistic term that refers to a nonverbal sentence (i.e. a sentence without a finite verb). As a nominal sentence does not have a verbal predicate, it may contain a nominal predicate, an adjectival predicate, in Semitic languages also an adverbial predicate or even a prepositional predicate. In Egyptian-Coptic, however, as in the majority of African languages, sentences with adverbial or prepositional predicate show a distinctly different structure.. The relation of nominal sentences to verbal sentences is a question of tense marking.

In a subordinate clause, the finite verb is not affected by V2, and also appears at the end of the sentence, resulting in full SOV order: "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat." (Word-for- word: "I say that Karl a belt bought has.") A rare example of SOV word order in English is "I (subject) thee (object) wed (verb)" in the wedding vow "With this ring, I thee wed."Andreas Fischer, "'With this ring I thee wed': The verbs to wed and to marry in the history of English".

Many efforts to define the grammatical relations emphasize the role inflectional morphology. In English, the subject can or must agree with the finite verb in person and number, and in languages that have morphological case, the subject and object (and other verb arguments) are identified in terms of the case markers that they bear (e.g. nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, ergative, absolutive, etc.). Inflectional morphology may be a more reliable means for defining the grammatical relations than the configuration, but its utility can be very limited in many cases.

The present perfect intrinsically refers to past events, although it can be considered to denote primarily the resulting present situation rather than the events themselves. The present tense has two moods, indicative and subjunctive; when no mood is specified, it is often the indicative that is meant. In a present indicative construction, the finite verb appears in its base form, or in its -s form if its subject is third-person singular. (The verb be has the forms am, is, are, while the modal verbs do not add -s for third-person singular.) For the present subjunctive, see English subjunctive.

Indicative mood, in English, refers to finite verb forms that are not marked as subjunctive and are not imperatives or conditionals. They are the verbs typically found in the main clauses of declarative sentences and questions formed from them, as well as in most dependent clauses (except for those that use the subjunctive). The information that a form is indicative is often omitted when referring to it: the simple present indicative is usually referred to as just the simple present, etc. (unless some contrast of moods, such as between indicative and subjunctive, is pertinent to the topic).

This is not exactly parallel to any categories of grammatical voice or mood in the Indo-European languages, but can produce similar results. So the niphal is effectively a passive, the piel is an emphatic form and the hithpael has a middle or reflexive force. The qal is any form of the finite verb paradigm which is not so modified. For example, in Genesis 16:2, "So Sarai said to Abram" the Hebrew is "וַתֹּ֨אמֶר שָׂרַ֜י אֶל־אַבְרָ֗ם" the word וַתֹּאמֶר ("vatómer", meaning "and-she-said") is in the qal form as a conjugation of אָמַר.

For example, syön kalan "I eat a fish (completely)" must denote a future event, since there is no way to completely eat a fish at the current moment (the moment the eating is complete, the simple past tense or the perfect must be used). By contrast, syön kalaa "I eat a fish (not yet complete)" denotes a present event by indicating ongoing action. Finnish has three grammatical persons; finite verbs agree with subject nouns in person and number by way of suffixes. Non-finite verb forms bear the infinitive suffix -ta/-tä (often lenited to -(d)a/-(d)ä due to consonant gradation).

And that judges were seated between these openings... Here, the main infinitives, those directly depended on the finite verb , namely and , attractivelly affect the mood of the embedded clauses introduced by , a temporal conjunction, and , a relative prepositional phrase. :: The corresponding mood form of the direct narration would have been the indicative: :: After my soul had departed from my body, it was marching accompanied by many others, and we were arriving in a marvellous place, where there were two openings side by side in the ground and also two more in the sky in opposite position. And judges were seated between these openings...

In fact, in Sakayan's work, contrastive analysis is predominantly based on Armenian, and other languages are viewed through the prism of this language. The objectives of such an endeavor are to establish language typologies and to identify areas of difficulty in foreign language acquisition. Her work also incorporates the findings of Armenian and Russian data — not always accessible to Western linguists. Sakayan introduces to the Western reader the idiosyncrasies of Eastern Armenian morphology and syntax, with a special focus on the verb system and its rich paradigm of non- finite verb forms, called derbays (դերբայ = participle).

Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive. In many other languages the infinitive is a single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like morir ("(to) die") in Spanish, manger ("(to) eat") in French, portare ("(to) carry") in Latin, lieben ("(to) love") in German, ' (chitat', "(to) read") in Russian, etc. However, some languages have no infinitive forms.

The term pro-drop is also used in other frameworks in generative grammar, such as in lexical functional grammar (LFG), but in a more general sense: "Pro-drop is a widespread linguistic phenomenon in which, under certain conditions, a structural NP may be unexpressed, giving rise to a pronominal interpretation." (Bresnan 1982:384). The empty category assumed (under government and binding theory) to be present in the vacant subject position left by pro-dropping is known as pro, or as "little pro" (to distinguish it from "big PRO", an empty category associated with non-finite verb phrases).R.L. Trask, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics, Routledge 2013, p. 218.

Critics doubt if the same author recounting the same story in much the same words in different parts of the same text would have used the same two key terms with such strikingly different meanings. However the alternative is that the author of Acts made a careless slip, and Evangelical theology cannot allow this. Evangelicals point out that in Acts 9:7, ἀκούω appears in a participle construction with a genitive (ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς), and in Acts 22:9 as a finite verb with an accusative object (φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν). Evangelical author Nigel Turner suggests the use of the accusative indicates hearing with understanding.

English is an SVO language, that is, in simple declarative sentences the order of the main components is subject–verb–object(s) (or subject–verb–complement). A typical finite clause consists of a noun phrase functioning as the subject, a finite verb, followed by any number of dependents of the verb. In some theories of grammar the verb and its dependents are taken to be a single component called a verb phrase or the predicate of the clause; thus the clause can be said to consist of subject plus predicate. Dependents include any number of complements (especially a noun phrase functioning as the object), and other modifiers of the verb.

In linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis (VP-ellipsis or VPE) is a type of elliptical construction and a type of anaphora in which a non-finite verb phrase has been left out (elided) provided that its antecedent can be found within the same linguistic context, e.g. She will sell sea shells, and he will sell sea shells too. VP-ellipsis is a well-studied kind of ellipsis,Prominent explorations of VP-ellipsis are, for instance, those of Hankamer and Sag (1976), Hardt (1993), and Johnson (2001). particularly with regard to its occurrence in English,An extensive corpus study is found in Bos and Spenader (2011).

In the teaching of writing skills (composition skills), students are generally required to express (rather than imply) the elements of a sentence, leading to the schoolbook definition of a sentence as one that must (explicitly) include a subject and a verb. For example, in second-language acquisition, teachers often reject one-word answers that only imply a clause, commanding the student to "give me a complete sentence," by which they mean an explicit one. As with all language expressions, sentences might contain function and content words and contain properties such as characteristic intonation and timing patterns. Sentences are generally characterized in most languages by the inclusion of a finite verb, e.g.

A sentence is typically associated with a clause and a clause can be either a clause simplex or a clause complex. A clause is a clause simplex if it represents a single process going on through time and it is a clause complex if it represents a logical relation between two or more processes and is thus composed of two or more clause simplexes. A clause (simplex) typically contains a predication structure with a subject noun phrase and a finite verb. Although the subject is usually a noun phrase, other kinds of phrases (such as gerund phrases) work as well, and some languages allow subjects to be omitted.

PRO (pronounced 'big pro') is a null pronoun phrase that occurs in a position where it does not get case (or gets null case) but takes the theta-role assigned by the non-finite verb to its subject. PRO's meaning is determined by the precedent DP that controls it . As theta criterion states that each argument is assigned a theta-role, and those theta- roles must consist of a syntactic category that the verb selects even when there is no overt subject. This is where PRO comes in to help satisfy theta- criterion by appearing as the null subject attaining the appropriate theta role .

This frequently used, classic example of a garden-path sentence is attributed to Thomas Bever. The sentence is hard to parse because raced can be interpreted as a finite verb or as a passive participle. The reader initially interprets raced as the main verb in the simple past, but when the reader encounters fell, they are forced to re-analyse the sentence, concluding that raced is being used as a passive participle and horse is the direct object of the subordinate clause. The sentence could be replaced by "The horse that was raced past the barn fell", where that was raced past the barn tells the reader which horse is under discussion.

Like semantic dependencies, morphological dependencies can overlap with and point in the same direction as syntactic dependencies, overlap with and point in the opposite direction of syntactic dependencies, or be entirely independent of syntactic dependencies. The arrows are now used to indicate morphological dependencies. :Morphological dependencies 1 The plural houses in (a) demands the plural of the demonstrative determiner, hence these appears, not this, which means there is a morphological dependency that points down the hierarchy from houses to these. The situation is reversed in (b), where the singular subject Sam demands the appearance of the agreement suffix -s on the finite verb works, which means there is a morphological dependency pointing up the hierarchy from Sam to works.

In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and its dependentsobjects, complements and other modifiersbut not always including the subject. Thus in the sentence A fat man put the money quickly in the box, the words put the money quickly in the box are a verb phrase; it consists of the verb put and its dependents, but not the subject a fat man. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered a predicate in more traditional grammars. Verb phrases generally are divided among two types: finite, of which the head of the phrase is a finite verb; and nonfinite, where the head is a nonfinite verb, such as an infinitive, participle or gerund.

Adjectives come after the noun they modify, and inflect for number and gender:WALS - Beber (Middle Atlas) : /argaz amʕdur/ 'the foolish man' (lit. 'man foolish') : /tamtˤot tamʕdurt/ 'the foolish woman' : /irgzen imʕdar/ 'the foolish men' : /tajtʃin timʕdar/ 'the foolish women' Adjectives may also occur alone, in which case they become an NP. Practically all adjectives also have a verbal form used for predicative purposes, which behaves just like a normal verb: : /i-mmuʕdr urgaz/ 'the man is foolish' (lit. '3ps-foolish man') : /argaz i-mmuʕdr-n/ 'the foolish man' [using a non-finite verb] As such, adjectives may be classed as a subset of verbs which also have other non-verbal features. However Penchoen (1973:21) argues that they are actually nouns.

As a result, Manchu sentence structure is subject–object–verb (SOV). Manchu uses a small number of case-marking particles that are similar to those found in Korean, but also has a separate class of true postpositions. Case-markers and postpositions can be used together, as in the following sentence: : : I that person-GEN with go-PST : I went with that person In this example, the postposition , "with", requires its nominal argument to have the genitive case, and so we have the genitive case-marker between the noun and the postposition. Manchu also makes extensive use of converb structures, and has an inventory of converbial suffixes that indicate the relationship between the subordinate verb and the finite verb that follows it.

The two competing analyses are illustrated with the following trees: ::Trees illustrating inversion The two trees on the left illustrate the movement analysis of subject-auxiliary inversion in a constituency-based theory; a BPS-style (bare phrase structure) representational format is employed, where the words themselves are used as labels for the nodes in the tree. The finite verb will is seen moving out of its base position into a derived position at the front of the clause. The trees on the right show the contrasting dependency-based analysis. The flatter structure, which lacks a finite VP constituent, does not require an analysis in terms of movement but the dependent Fred simply appears on the other side of its head Will.

In Sanskrit compositions there has always been an unmarked arrangement or word order; in the traditional word order the subject is followed by object with gerund and infinitives in between and the finite verb in the final position. An illusion is wrong perception owing to avidya (ignorance), in which case conditions of veridical experience do not obtain; the locus (') does not figure as any objectivity or content ('), it looks as if it is superimposed. The sky is not a perceivable content and therefore, it is never presented as a ' and is not capable of being the viśayah of any perceptual judgment. Shankara speaks of adhyasa ('illicit superimposition') of the viśayah ('not-self') and its properties on the ' or the pure self.

In the current traditions of Orthodox chant, its Greek text is not only sung in older translations such as the one in Old Church Slavonic or in Georgian, but also in Romanian and other modern languages. In the Greek text, the introductory clauses are participial, and the first person plural becomes apparent only with the verb ἀποθώμεθα "let us lay aside". The Slavonic translation mirrors this closely, while most other translations introduce a finite verb in the first person plural already in the first line (Latin imitamur, Georgian vemsgavsebit, Romanian închipuim "we imitate, represent"). ; Greek: :Οἱ τὰ χερουβὶμ μυστικῶς εἰκονίζοντες :καὶ τῇ ζωοποιῷ τριάδι τὸν τρισάγιον ὕμνον προσᾴδοντες :πᾶσαν τὴν βιωτικὴν ἀποθώμεθα μέριμναν :Ὡς τὸν βασιλέα τῶν ὅλων ὑποδεξόμενοι :ταῖς ἀγγελικαῖς ἀοράτως δορυφορούμενον τάξεσιν :ἀλληλούϊα ἀλληλούϊα ἀλληλούϊαBrightman, ed. (1896, 377 & 379).

English has the modal verbs can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, and also (depending on classification adopted) ought (to), dare, need, had (better), used (to). These do not add -s for the third-person singular, and they do not form infinitives or participles; the only inflection they undergo is that to a certain extent could, might, should and would function as preterites (past tenses) of can, may, shall and will respectively. A modal verb can serve as the finite verb introducing a verb catena, as in he _might_ have been injured then. These generally express some form of modality (possibility, obligation, etc.), although will and would (and sometimes shall and should) can serve – among their other uses – to express future time reference and conditional mood, as described elsewhere on this page.

Yāska defines four main categories of words: # nāma – nouns or substantives # ākhyāta – verbs # upasarga – pre-verbs or prefixes # nipāta – particles, invariant words (perhaps prepositions) Yāska singled out two main ontological categories: a process or an action (bhāva), and an entity or a being or a thing (sattva). Then he first defined the verb as that in which the bhāva ('process') is predominant whereas a noun is that in which the sattva ('thing') is predominant. The 'process' is one that has, according to one interpretation, an early stage and a later stage and when such a 'process' is the dominant sense, a finite verb is used as in vrajati, 'walks', or pacati, 'cooks'. But this characterisation of noun / verb is inadequate, as some processes may also have nominal forms.

Another type is the inflectional phrase, where (for example) a finite verb phrase is taken to be the complement of a functional, possibly covert head (denoted INFL) which is supposed to encode the requirements for the verb to inflect – for agreement with its subject (which is the specifier of INFL), for tense and aspect, etc. If these factors are treated separately, then more specific categories may be considered: tense phrase (TP), where the verb phrase is the complement of an abstract "tense" element; aspect phrase; agreement phrase and so on. Further examples of such proposed categories include topic phrase and focus phrase, which are assumed to be headed by elements that encode the need for a constituent of the sentence to be marked as the topic or as the focus. See the Generative approaches section of the latter article for details.

Unlike most Khoisan languages, but like Nama, the most neutral word order is SOV, though word order is relatively free. As with most Khoisan languages, there are postpositions. There is a tense-aspect marker ke which often appears in second position in affirmative sentences in the present tense, giving X Aux S O V order (e.g. S Aux O V). For example, :Kʼarokwa ke ǀʼuizi ʼa gam :boys Asp rock-pl obl throw :"The boys are throwing rocks" :ǀʼui-zi ʼa ke kʼarokwa gam :rock-pl obl Asp boys throw :"The boys are throwing rocks" This marker appears first in certain subordinate clauses in a manner reminiscent of V2 languages such as German, where a clause-initial complementizer is in complementary distribution with a second position phenomenon (in German, it would be the finite verb which appears in second position).

In 1977, Pontic-descended Greek linguist D.E. Tombaidis began a study of Christian Pontic Greek refugees living in Greece to see if he could find traces of an infinitive, which he himself had never heard among Pontic Greeks. He could find only one informant who could understand and use the infinitive, otherwise, the speakers used a subordinating particle combined with a third-person finite verb form, just like speakers of Standard Modern Greek. Not all refugee Pontic Greek speakers could assimilate rapidly to Standard Modern Greek, and decades later could still reproduce other distinctive Pontic forms, leading Tombaidis to conclude that the Christian Pontic infinitive was already moribund by the time the Christian Pontians were expelled from Asia Minor during the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey; this in turn led Tombaidis to conclude that Deffner was not a reliable source.Tombaidis, D.E. 1977.

For archaic forms, see the next section. English has a number of modal verbs which generally do not inflect (most of them are surviving preterite-present verbs), and so have only a single form, used as a finite verb with subjects of all persons and numbers. These verbs are can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, ought (to), as well as need and dare (when used with a bare infinitive), and in some analyses used (to) and had better. (The forms could, might, should and would are considered to be the past tenses of can, may, shall and will respectively, although they are not always used as such.) These verbs do not have infinitive, imperative or participle forms, although in some cases there exists a synonymous phrase that can be used to produce such forms, such as be able to in the case of can and could.

The meaning, structure, identity and even the number of "conjugation prefixes" have always been a subject of disagreements. The term "conjugation prefix" simply alludes to the fact that a finite verb in the indicative mood must always contain one of them. Some of their most frequent expressions in writing are mu-, i3\- (ED Lagaš variant: e-), ba-, bi2\- (ED Lagaš: bi- or be2), im-, im-ma- (ED Lagaš e-ma-), im-mi- (ED Lagaš i3-mi or e-me-), mi- (always followed by pronominal- dimensional -ni-) and al-, and to a lesser extent a-, am3-, am3-ma-, and am3-mi-; virtually all analyses attempt to describe many of the above as combinations or allomorphs of each other. The starting point of most analyses are the obvious facts that the 1st person dative always requires mu-, and that the verb in a "passive" clause without an overt agent tends to have ba-.

The Ancient Greek infinitive is a non-finite verb form, sometimes called a verb mood, with no endings for person or number, but it is (unlike in Modern English) inflected for tense and voice (for a general introduction in the grammatical formation and the morphology of the Ancient Greek infinitive see here and for further information see these tables). It is used mainly to express acts, situations and in general "states of affairs" that are depended on another verb form, usually a finite one. It is a non declinable nominal verb form equivalent to a noun, and expresses the verbal notion abstractly; used as a noun in its main uses, it has many properties of it, as it will be seen below, yet it differs from it in some respects:Kühner, Raphael. Grammar of the Greek language for the use in high schools and colleges.

The fourth infinitive is formed just like the third but with the ending -minen, which is declined like all other Finnish nouns in -nen. It is also a noun but its meaning is more "the process" rather than the very act of a verb. This often corresponds to "-ation" words in English: :käyminen = "(the process of) going", which can mean "fermentation" among other things. The use of this form as a proper infinitive rather than an "action noun" is generally restricted to forms such as the following in which it implies a sort of obligation: :minun on tekeminen jotakin = "it is up to me to do something" :on tekeminen jotakin = "something ought to be done" :heidän ei ole kysymistä ... = "theirs is not to ask ..." :tästä ei ole puhumista = "this is not to be spoken of"; or this construction, where the finite verb is repeated in the partitive with a possessive suffix: :hän puhui puhumistaan = "he talked and talked".

The Sumerian finite verb distinguishes a number of moods and agrees (more or less consistently) with the subject and the object in person, number and gender. The verb chain may also incorporate pronominal references to the verb's other modifiers, which has also traditionally been described as "agreement", although, in fact, such a reference and the presence of an actual modifier in the clause need not co- occur: not only e2-še3 ib2-ši-du-un "I'm going to the house", but also e2-še3 i3-du-un "I'm going to the house" and simply ib2-ši-du-un "I'm going to it" are possible. The Sumerian verb also makes a binary distinction according to a category that some regard as tense (past vs present-future), others as aspect (perfective vs imperfective), and that will be designated as TA (tense/aspect) in the following. The two members of the opposition entail different conjugation patterns and, at least for many verbs, different stems; they are theory-neutrally referred to with the Akkadian grammatical terms for the two respective forms – ḫamṭu (quick) and marû (slow, fat).

In general, Greek is a pro drop language or a null-subject language: it does not have to express the (always in nominative case) subject of a finite verb form (either pronoun or noun), unless it is communicatively or syntactically important (e.g. when emphasis and/or contrast is intended etc.).Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges §§ 929-931 Concerning infinitives, no matter of which type, either articulated or not, and also either of the dynamic or declarative use, the following can be said as a general introduction to the infinitival syntax (:case rules for the infinitival subject): :(1) When the infinitive has a subject of its own (that is, when the subject of the infinitive is not co- referential either with the subject or the object of the governing verb form), then this word stands in the accusative case (Accusative and Infinitive).Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges § 936 :(2) When the subject of the infinitive is co-referential with the subject of the main verb, then it is usually neither expressed nor repeated within the infinitival clause (Nominative and Infinitive).

According to his disciple Cuthbert, Bede was doctus in nostris carminibus ("learned in our songs"). Cuthbert's letter on Bede's death, the Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae, moreover, commonly is understood to indicate that Bede composed a five-line vernacular poem known to modern scholars as Bede's Death Song As Opland notes, however, it is not entirely clear that Cuthbert is attributing this text to Bede: most manuscripts of the latter do not use a finite verb to describe Bede's presentation of the song, and the theme was relatively common in Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. The fact that Cuthbert's description places the performance of the Old English poem in the context of a series of quoted passages from Sacred Scripture, indeed, might be taken as evidence simply that Bede also cited analogous vernacular texts. On the other hand, the inclusion of the Old English text of the poem in Cuthbert's Latin letter, the observation that Bede "was learned in our song," and the fact that Bede composed a Latin poem on the same subject all point to the possibility of his having written it.