MEANINGS EXPRESSED BY BARE INFINITIVE CLAUSES
Type 4: V + NG + bare infinitive – We let them go
Typical verbs are: let, have, make; see, hear, feel; help.
Bare-infinitive clauses evoke an event in which an end-point is included, as in we let them go, we saw them go. Relatively few verbs occur in this pattern. They include three verbs of coercion, illustrated below, a few verbs of perception and the verb help.
Don’t let anxiety spoil your life.
They made the prisoners stand for hours.
I’ll have my secretary make you a reservation.
Syntactically, we analyze the non-finite clause of the make type as an object complement, complementing the direct object. Notice the parallel between: She made them angry/ She made them sit down.
Analysis of the NG + bare-infinitive complement of perceptual verbs illustrated below is more problematic. Is the NG the object of the matrix clause or the subject of the non-finite clause? Does the NG + bare infinitive refer to a whole situation, as with want?
I saw someone enter the shop late at night.
She felt something hard hit her on the head.
While the ‘whole situation’ view appears to be semantically acceptable, ‘I saw someone enter the shop’ entails ‘I saw someone’, this entailment not being the case with the want type. Syntactically, the NG is the object of the matrix clause and is also the subject of the bare-infinitive clause.
Some of the clauses of coercion and perception (but not with causative have, or with feel) can be passivized, with the NG as subject and the bare infinitive replaced by a to-infinitive, as in: The prisoners were made to stand for hours, Someone was seen to enter the shop. Let is usually replaced by allow (They were allowed to go). In this respect we find the same divisibility of the NG as occurs with the ‘ask’ type.
It is notoriously difficult to pin down the difference in meaning between help + bare infinitive and help + to-infinitive. One analysis sees the bare infinitive as direct or active involvement in bringing about the action expressed by the infinitive, as in: I’ll help you carry your luggage upstairs. With help + to, by contrast, the event is seen to be the consequence of the helping, and often means ‘contribute to’ rather than active involvement by the helper, as in Acupuncture can help people to give up smoking.
