All the sentences we have looked at so far in this chapter have been short and simple statements. They have had a subject and a verb, and sometimes other things following the verb. On p. 36 we described such constructions as having a truth value; they can be true or false. We must now make a distinction between such constructions as these and another type. The type we started with are called finite and the type with which we are now about to contrast them are called non-finite. Before attempting a description of the difference, let us look at a few contrasting examples. In the following the first example in each pair is finite and the second is non-finite: 1 The ship disappeared. The ship disappearing…. 2 Somebody speaks for a few minutes. Speaking for a few minutes…. 3 He mentioned the evidence. Mentioning the evidence…. 4 My landlady has been cooking cabbage. Having been cooking cabbage…. 5 He found the switch. To find the switch…. 6 The lake is choppy. For the lake to be choppy…. 7 The weather may be wet. For the weather to be wet…. The key to the difference lies in an important distinction within the functioning of language. If you survey the list of examples given above, you will see that the finite examples can function independently as communications with an addressee. We know that the person who utters a sentence like The ship disappeared is telling us something which he wishes us to regard as a fact. It is a declarative sentence. He could instead have spoken about the same subjectmatter but have put it in the form that is technically known as interrogative: Did the ship disappear? In the latter case he would still be assuming that the idea of the ship disappearing had a truth value, but he would be appealing to the addressee to say what that truth value was: is it so or is it not so? In contrast, the non-finite constructions do not distinguish between telling and asking; the speaker of an expression like The ship disappearing… is neither asserting that it is the case, nor requiring the addressee to say whether it is the case. This, then, is the first point in the distinction between finite and non-finite constructions. And the form of the construction reflects the difference of function. Finite constructions have a subject and a verb, and it is the way these elements are arranged that indicates the speaker’s communicative intention: The ship disappeared—subject before verb (declarative)— v. Did the ship disappear?—part of the verb phrase coming before the subject (interrogative). Non-finite constructions need not even have a subject and, if they do, there is certainly no possibility of changing its position to achieve a difference of communicative function. A further point about finite constructions is that the speaker has the option of using modal verbs, thus introducing nuances of certainty, doubt, probability, and so on, into his communication. The ship disappeared is a straight-forward declaration, but The ship may have disappeared is a statement merely of possibility. The ship must have disappeared expresses confidence, without claiming direct knowledge of the disappearance, only an inference. In contrast, non-finite constructions
cannot possibly contain modal verbs. that is, the speaker has a choice between saying The ship disappeared and The ship disappears. If he chooses the first, the past tense, he means that the disappearance of the ship is somehow remote from the present occasion on which he is speaking—his claim will normally be understood as applying to some past occasion now over and done with. But, if he puts it in the present tense, he is speaking of the disappearance as part of the present state of the world. Non-finite constructions cannot distinguish the timing relative to the occasion of speaking; the ship disappearing is not timed—it is neither past nor present. A last point needs to be made about finiteness. The relation between subject and verb in a finite construction is often marked by what is known as agreement, or concord, of the verb with the subject. For instance, in the present tense, a third person singular subject demands the use of the sform of the first verb; all other subjects demand the base form. Thus we have she sings, and the train goes by, but I sing, they sing, the trains go by, etc. There are certain considerations that limit the relevance of subject-verb agreement in English. Agreement is not realized with modal verbs as they have no s-form (e.g. *He mays arrive tomorrow). Nor is agreement realized in the past tense: she sang, I sang, the train went by, the trains went by, etc. Here the verbs are sang and went whatever the subject; the d-form is used without any variation (see Figure 13, A, 3a, on p. 38). So it may look as though subject-verb agreement is not a very important principle in English grammar. It is certainly true that some languages, among them Spanish and Russian, have systems of agreement between subject and verb that are much more complicated and extensively manifested than the English system. But we still have to take account of the verb be. This verb is extremely common and for finite expressions it uses not three forms (base, s-form and d-form), but five: am, are, is, was, were. With this verb even the past tense has a system for making the verb agree with the subject (Figure 13, A, 3b): The train was going by The trains were going by Furthermore, there are extra forms (am and are, Figure 13, A, 1b) used in the present tense. Finite constructions, by their very nature, can be independent of any verbal context. When they are uttered, we know how we are expected to react to what is being said without having to search around for an explanation. Non-finite constructions, on the other hand, do not have this independence. They are neither interrogative nor declarative, but are completely neutral to any such meaning. And they have no past or present tense; the contrast between past and present is just not possible. These facts are sufficient to account for the sense of incompleteness we get when we read: The ship disappearing With the ship disappearing For the ship to disappear Disappearing In conclusion, we need to summarize the use of the terms finite and non-finite: 1 We can say of a verb phrase that it is finite or non-finite. If it is finite: a it has a subject; b there is a tense (past or present) associated with its first word (and the first word can be a modal auxiliary); c the first word is in agreement with the subject except under certain conditions described above. If it is non-finite: a it need not have a subject; b it has no past or present tense, and cannot contain a modal auxiliary; c the first word is not in agreement with any subject. 2 The kind of construction which has a verb phrase and may have a subject and/or
complements and adjuncts, is called a clause. (See Chapter 5, p. 84, and glossary for further comments on the term clause as compared with sentence.) We may also use the terms finite and non-finite of clauses. If a clause contains a finite verb phrase, it is a finite clause; such clauses contain a subject. If a clause contains a verb phrase but has no finite verb phrase, then it is a
non-finite clause.