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to-infinitive clauses – this is easy to use (zero object of use); he is the man to talk to (zero complement of preposition to). past participial clauses – as used in forming passive voice constructions (the cake was made, with zero object of made), and in some other uses, such as I want to get it seen to (zero complement of to).
In the example, the participial phrase τὸν εὖ στρατηγήσοντα tòn eû stratēgḗsonta, literally "the one going to be a good general," is used to embed the idea εὖ στρατηγήσει eû stratēgḗsei "he will be a good general" within the main verb. The participle is very widely used in Ancient Greek, especially in ...
As an adverbial phrase, where the role of subject of the nonfinite verb is usually understood to be played by the subject of the main clause (but see dangling participle). A participial clause like this may be introduced by a conjunction such as when or while. Looking out of the window, Mary saw a car go by. (it is understood to be Mary who was ...
Being a verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles , converbs , gerunds and gerundives ), infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject ; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non ...
a complement or postmodifier [5] may be a prepositional phrase (... of London), a relative clause (like ... which we saw yesterday), certain adjective or participial phrases (... sitting on the beach), or a dependent clause or infinitive phrase appropriate to the noun (like ... that the world is round after a noun such as fact or statement, or ...
A participle phrase is intended to modify a particular noun or pronoun, but in a dangling participle, it is instead erroneously attached to a different noun or to nothing; whereas in an absolute clause, is not intended to modify any noun at all, and thus modifying nothing is the intended use. An example of an absolute construction is:
In linguistics, an absolute construction is a grammatical construction standing apart from a normal or usual syntactical relation with other words or sentence elements. It can be a non-finite clause that is subordinate in form and modifies an entire sentence, an adjective or possessive pronoun standing alone without a modified substantive, or a transitive verb when its object is implied but ...
An example is land in the phrase land mines given above. Examples of the above types of modifiers, in English, are given below. It was [a nice house]. (adjective modifying a noun, in a noun phrase) [The swiftly flowing waters] carried it away. (adjectival phrase, in this case a participial phrase, modifying a noun in a noun phrase)