Verbs: Catentives¶

She started reading

She started to read

She kept reading

She kept to read

Prospective meanings¶

Tend to take to-infinitival clauses

The to-infinitival clause often denotes a situation viewed as intended, expected, desired, possible, or not yet realized.

want to leave

hope to win

plan to retire

decide to go

promise to help

The complement typically represents a prospective situation rather than an already realized one.

Situation-as-entity meanings¶

Tend to take gerund-participial clauses

Gerund-participial clauses present a situation as an event, activity, or state that can be evaluated, remembered, admitted, avoided, considered, etc.

enjoy swimming

avoid talking

consider moving

deny stealing

admit lying

The situation is construed as an entity rather than as a prospective event.

Memory contrast¶

to-infinitival clause,	gerund-participial clause

remember to call, remember calling

forget to call, forget calling

regret to inform, regret telling

The to-infinitival clause usually denotes a situation that is still prospective relative to the matrix verb.

The gerund-participial clause usually denotes a situation viewed as already occurring or completed.

Perception verbs¶

Favour bare infinitival clauses

After perception verbs:

I saw her leave.

I heard them sing.

We watched him cross the street.

The bare infinitival clause typically presents the perceived situation as a complete occurrence.

The gerund-participial clause typically presents it as unfolding or in progress.

I saw her leaving.

I heard them singing.

Causative verbs¶

Favour bare infinitival clauses

make someone leave

let someone stay

have someone fix it

help someone solve it (or to solve it)

The complement denotes the caused situation.

Aspectual verbs¶

both to-infinitival and gerund-participle

Often allow both to-infinitival and gerund-participial clauses.

begin to work

begin working

continue to work

continue working

Many aspectual verbs permit both complements with little or no difference in meaning.

Some, however, show important semantic contrasts:

forget to lock / forget locking

go on to become / go on talking

Propositional verbs¶

Often favour content clauses.

Many verbs of saying, believing, and knowing typically license content clauses rather than non-finite clauses.

believe that he left

know that he left

say that he left

~~believe leaving~~

~~know leaving~~

Some nevertheless license to-infinitival clauses:

claim to understand

expect to win

appear to know

The choice depends on the type of complement selected by the lexical verb.

Change meaning with the complement¶

A small but important group licenses both to-infinitival and gerund-participial clauses, with a difference in meaning.

to-infinitival clause gerund-participial clause

try to open it, try opening it

mean to offend, mean offending

propose to leave, propose leaving

hate to interrupt, hate interrupting

Note

These verbs must largely be learned individually.

Catentive verbs for progressive aspect¶

Many catentive verbs can be used to carry temporal information.

They are lexical verbs whose meaning relates to the temporal phase or development of another situation.

They can be used “auxiliary like” with progressive.

They kept reading (similar to “They were reading”)

There is a slight change in focus between the usage with gerund-participle and to-infinitival.

Sentence	Structure	Meaning / viewpoint
She started reading.	start + gerund-participial clause	Focuses more on the activity as an ongoing process
She started to read.	start + to-infinitival clause	Focuses more on the transition into the activity (the moment she began)

The syntactic difference¶

Be + Progressive (were reading):

Here, “be” is a grammatical auxiliary. It carries no lexical meaning of its own; it exists solely to apply the progressive aspect to the main verb (read).

Lexical Phase Verb:

Highlight the phase of an action

kept/started reading etc: In CGEL, these are catenative verbs.

They are fully lexical verbs that take a non-finite clause (the -ing form) as their complement.

They possess their own semantic weight—specifically, they highlight the phases of an action (beginning, continuing, ending).

The Rhetorical Impact¶

Because “be” is an auxiliary and keep/start are catenatives, they manipulate time and action entirely differently for the reader:

Auxiliary “be” dissolves boundaries:

Imperfective, in the middle of a continous

When you use “were reading””, you strip away the beginning and end of the action. You drop the reader directly into the middle of a continuous, boundary-less state.

Impact: It creates a static environment. It is the syntax of background noise, unresolved situations, and suspended animation.

Catenative verbs assert boundaries:

Edges of the action

When you use a catenative verb like started, stopped, or kept, you are forcing the reader to look at the edges (phases) of the action.

Impact: It creates friction and momentum.

Started reading forces the reader to witness the exact point of ignition.
Stopped reading forces them to feel the abrupt halt.
Kept reading implies active resistance against stopping—it frames continuity not as a passive state, but as an act of will or endurance.

When to use catentives¶

Use the auxiliary (“were reading”) when you want to suspend time and build a backdrop. It tells the reader: This is the environment, wait for the main event.

Use the catenative (“kept reading”) when you want to propel time. It tells the reader: The action itself—its ignition, its persistence, or its death—is the main event.

Over-relying on the be-progressive makes prose feel sluggish and observational. Upgrading to catenative verbs injects human agency and temporal progression back into the argument.

Over-relying on catenative verbs on the other hand (start, begin, continue, try) dilutes your authoritative voice. It creates three distinct problems in persuasive writing:

Avoid: Throat-clearing:

Hesitation:

Writers often use start to as an unconscious buffer before the real verb. Saying

The social fabric started to tear (sounds timid).

If the tearing is a reality, assert it directly:

The social fabric tore.”

Avoid: Catenative chaining:

Because these verbs can stack infinitely, writers build bloated chains, that forces the reader to slog through structural delays before reaching the conceptual payload:

Society is beginning to try to understand…

Relevant to the argument:

Isolate every instance of start, begin, continue, or try and ask one question: Does the specific phase (the exact onset or persistence) matter to my argument?

If Yes: Keep it

We must pinpoint exactly when the movement started to fracture.

If No: Cut the catenative and use the bare lexical verb

The movement fractured.

Narration over analysis¶

Sounds like narration of events

Heavy use of phase verbs pulls your tone away from philosophical dissection and makes it sound like a play-by-play narration of events.

The old guard keeps trying to enforce outdated regulations, but the public starts to bypass these systems entirely

The core issue is that keeps trying to enforce is a weak catenative chain, and ”starts to bypass" focuses unnecessarily on the beginning of the action rather than the fact that it is happening.

By stripping away the catenative verbs, the timeline disappears. You are no longer telling a story about a sequence of events; you are stating the mechanics of a system. The bare lexical verbs (lose, enforces, bypasses, collapses) transform the paragraph from a historical observation into an absolute structural law.

The old guard enforces outdated regulations, but the public bypasses these systems entirely. (fact, authority, strip the catenatives entirely and rely on the bare lexical verbs)

The old guard clings to outdated regulations, but the public bypasses them entirely (keep the meaning with precise lexical verb)

Approximate generalization¶

Approximation, since ultimately, lexical licensing wins.

Semantic class	Typical pattern	Examples
Desire, intention, decision	to-infinitival clause	want, hope, plan, decide, intend, choose
Expectation, appearance, likelihood	to-infinitival clause	expect, seem, appear, happen, tend
Attempt, effort, success, failure	to-infinitival clause	attempt, try, manage, fail
Requirement, suitability	to-infinitival clause	need, deserve
Beginning, continuation, cessation	often both	begin, start, continue, cease
Preference and attitude	to-infinitival or gerund-participial clause	like, love, hate, prefer
Enjoyment, avoidance, consideration	gerund-participial clause	enjoy, avoid, consider, mind
Memory and past experience	often gerund-participial clause	remember doing, recall doing, regret doing
Admission, denial, acknowledgement	gerund-participial clause	admit doing, deny doing
Recommendation, suggestion, postponement	gerund-participial clause	suggest doing, recommend doing, postpone doing
Perception	bare infinitival or gerund-participial clause	see someone leave / see someone leaving
Causation, permission, assistance	bare infinitival clause	make someone leave, let someone stay, have someone do it, help someone do it