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French verbs have a large number of simple (one-word) forms. These are composed of two distinct parts: the stem (or root, or radix), which indicates which verb it is, and the ending (inflection), which indicates the verb's tense (imperfect, present, future etc.) and mood and its subject's person (I, you, he/she etc.) and number, though many endings can correspond to multiple tense-mood-subject ...
However, example a represents a number of Old English clauses with object following a non-finite verb form, with the superficial structure verb-subject-verb object. A more substantial number of clauses contain a single finite verb form followed by an object, superficially verb-subject-object.
Non-finite verbs are placed at the end, however, since V2 only applies to the finite verb: "Ich will etwas über Karl sagen" ("I want to say something about Karl"). In a subordinate clause, the finite verb is not affected by V2, and also appears at the end of the sentence, resulting in full SOV order: "Ich sage, dass Karl einen Gürtel gekauft hat.
Most discussions of RNR produce examples where the RNR mechanism is occurring at the sentence or clause level, meaning the conjuncts contain finite verbs. One should note in this respect, however, that RNR is not limited to occurring within clauses; it can also occur at the level of phrases. The following examples illustrate the backward ...
French verbs are conjugated by isolating the stem of the verb and adding an ending. In the first and second conjugation, the stem is easily identifiable from the infinitive, and remains essentially constant throughout the paradigm. For example, the stem of parler ("speak") is parl-and the stem of finir ("finish") is fin-. In the third group ...
In the following example, [27] the non-finite verb phrase es finden is head-final, whereas in the tensed main clause ich werde es finden (headed by the auxiliary verb werde indicating future tense), the finite auxiliary precedes its complement (as an instance of a verb-second construction; in the example below, this V2-position is called "T").
Most types of verbs can appear in finite or non-finite form (and sometimes these forms may be identical): for example, the English verb go has the finite forms go, goes, and went, and the non-finite forms go, going and gone. The English modal verbs (can, could, will, etc.) are defective and lack non-finite forms.
However, other analyses treat infinitival clauses as a kind of small clause. The latter approach proposes that small clauses lack inflected tense but can have a bare infinitival verb. Under this theory, NP VP constructions are allowed. The following examples contrast small clauses with non-finite verbs with main clauses with finite verbs.