Non-Finite Clauses & ESL/EFL Materials & Teachers

Some teachers prefer to call infinitives and participles phrases. This terminology
seems to be a reasonable response to a teaching reality: most learners have more
trouble with the finite clauses than they do with non-finite clauses. Moreover,
sentences with infinitives don' t appear to be very "complex": I like to study
grammar looks like a simple SVO with the infinitive as the direct object. When
teaching students how to write complex sentences, teachers are generally more
concerned about the difficulties of getting the right verb tense (and all of it) in
finite clauses; they don't want to complicate things by calling sentences with
infinitives complex sentences. Because one of the audiences for textbooks is the
teachers who will use it, in a grammar textbook that I published titled Applied
English Grammar, I decided to go with the tradition of calling infinitives and
participles phrases. I'm not sure I would make the same decision today, but I also
do not think that it matters a great deal. In one setting, I can talk about infinitive
clauses and in another setting infinitive phrases. I just advise that you be
consistent in your usage--and that you follow whatever system is used in the
textbook that you and the students are working with.

Participles as Adjectives vs. Participles as Adverbials

Consider these sets of made-up examples:

1a. The noise made by the car suggested an engine problem.

1b. Tired from the trip, we went to bed right after dinner.

2a. The tall women standing in the corner are from Brazil.
2b. Standing in the corner, the tall women watched the other people in the
classroom closely.

1a and 2a show participle clauses that have adjectival function; they come after the
noun and are attached to it and have become part of it. They can be analyzed as
reduced relative clauses:
1a. The noise that was made by the car suggested an engine problem.
2a. The tall women who are standing in the corner are from Brazil.
While the other clauses have the same types of words and the same organization,
they have different functions--and are analyzed as coming from different
sourses. 1b and 2b are actually adverbial in function and meaning.
1b. Because we were tired from the trip, we went to bed right after dinner.
2b. While they were standing in the corner, the tall women watched the other
people in the classroom closely.
Here's are authentic sentences from my sociology source. They're from a chapter
opener that tells the story of an anthropologist's encounters with another culture.
Anthropologist Napolean Chagnon was nearing the end of a three-day journey to
the home territory of the Yanomamo, one of the most technologically primitive
societies remaining on earth.

The anthropologist's clothes were soaked with perspiration, and his face and
hands were swollenfrom the bites of innumerable gnats swarming around him.

He and his guide climbed from the boat and walked toward the village, stooping as
they pushed their way through the dense undergrowth.

Entering the world of Yanomamo, Chagnon experienced a severe case of culture

shock, personal disorientation that accompanies exposure
to an unfamiliar way of life.

Some twelve thousand Yanomamo live in villages scattered along the border of
Venezuala and Brazil.

Reassured that he would survive at least the afternoon, he

was still horrified by his inablility to make any sense of the people
surrounding him.

Please email me your questions and comments. Thanks.