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A nonfinite verb is any of several verb forms that are not finite verbs; that is, they cannot serve as the root of an independent clause. Nonfinite verbs found in English typically are infinitives, participles and gerunds. (They sometimes are called verbalsalthough that term has traditionally applied only to participles and gerunds.) Additional nonfinite forms found in some other languages include converbs, gerundives and supines. Nonfinite verbs typically are not inflected by grammatical tense; and they present little inflection for other grammatical categories as well.〔Concerning the lack of inflection for these grammatical categories, see for instance Radford (1997:508f.), Tallerman (1998:68), and Finch (2000:92f.).〕 Generally, they also lack a subject dependent. One or more nonfinite verbs may be associated with a finite verb in a finite clause, composing the elements of a verb catena, or verb chain. Because English to a large extent lacks inflectional morphology, the finite and nonfinite forms of a verb may appear the same in a given context. In such a case, the environment surrounding the verb must be examined to determine whether it is finite or nonfinite. ==Examples== 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. ::I am trying to get the tickets. In the above sentences, ''been'', ''examined'' and ''done'' are past participles, ''want'', ''have'', ''refuse'', ''accept'' and ''get'' are infinitives, and ''coming'', ''running'' and ''trying'' are present participles (for alternative terminology, see the sections below). In languages like English that have little inflectional morphology, certain finite and nonfinite forms of a given verb are often identical, e.g. ::a. They laugh a lot. - Finite verb (present tense) in bold ::b. They will laugh a lot. - Nonfinite infinitive in bold ::a. Tom tried to help. - Finite verb (past tense) in bold ::b. Tom has tried to help. - Nonfinite participle in bold Despite the fact that the verbs in bold have the same outward appearance, the first in each pair is finite and the second is nonfinite. To distinguish the finite and nonfinite uses, one has to consider the environments in which they appear. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nonfinite verb」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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