The lexico-grammatical category of finitude

The syntactic content of the lexico-grammatical category of finitude is to express verbal predication.

This category presents English verbs in two different forms:

- finite (such verbs are called ‘finites’);

- non-finite (such verbs are called ‘non-finites (verbids’, in terms of O. Jespersen)).

Finite forms of the verb always refer an action to its agent a person or a thing that performs this action. That 18 why finites are liable to express six grammatical categories: person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood.

Non-finite forms of the verb are the infinitive, the gerund, and the participle (present and past). In many of their lexico-grammatical features these forms are intermediary between the verb and non-processal parts of speech. The mixed character of non-finites is revealed in their semantics (meaning), morphemic structural marking (form), combinability, and syntactic function.

Non-finites are characterized by the following features:

- they do not denote pure processes but present them as peculiar kinds of substance and properties;

- they do not express the most specific finite verb categories: tense and mood;

- they have a mixed valency: verbal and non-verbal;

- they perform mixed syntactic functions: verbal and non-verbal.

The opposition of finites to non-finites is based on expression of the functions of full (primary) predication and potential (secondary) predication: finites express predication in its complete form, and non-finites express semi-predication by building a semi-predicative complex within the sentence.

The formal differential feature (the marker) of the opposition is constituted by the expression of verbal time and

mood, which underlie the predicative function: having no immediate means of expressing time and mood categorial

semantics, the non-finites are the weak member of the opposition.

In the sentence, non-finites may occur singly, in a phrase (word-group) or in a predicative construction. Non-finites may perform any syntactic function, except that of the finite predicate.

Four English non-finites (the infinitive, the gerund, the present participle, and the past participle) distinctly differ from one another within the general verbid system. In compliance with the difference, the verb-predicate semi-predicative complexes are distinguished by the corresponding differential properties both in form and in syntactic-contextual function.