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jolly33's avatar

Are there two verbs in a sentence?

Asked by jolly33 (9points) July 4th, 2020

Are there two verbs in this sentence “She DONATED money to help FOUND a wild life refuge” If the word FOUND is not a verb, then what part of speech is the word FOUND? Please clarify my confusion.

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11 Answers

Tropical_Willie's avatar

FOUND should be FUND.

Welcome

zenvelo's avatar

There maybe tow or more verbs In a sentence. In your example, “help found (or fund) a wildlife refuge is a subordinate clause ,with the predicate of the clause referring back to the original subject .

Demosthenes's avatar

There are three verbs in this sentence: donated, to help, and found. to help is an infinitive, specifically, the infinitive of purpose. found is also an infinitive, just the “bare infinitive” without “to”. It heads its own clause “found a wildlife refuge”, the object of “to help”.

*found is not incorrect if the meaning is “start [an institution]”.

janbb's avatar

@Tropical_Willie I looked at that too but found is correct; i.e., “They founded a program for….”

@Demosthenes I’m not the linguist you are but I would have said that “to help found….” was a prepositional phrase. I agree that “to help” is an infinitive and I’m a bit perplexed by “found” as the OP was.

My knowledge of grammar is more intuitive than learned, however.

Demosthenes's avatar

@janbb In this sentence “to” is not a preposition, but a particle, an inseparable part of the infinitive. Its origin is ultimately prepositional, but “to” has become a meaningless word that does nothing but indicate an infinitive. E.g. “To err is human”. You couldn’t really define “to” in this sentence. It has no “meaning” on its own, it simply indicates that “to err” is an infinitive, being used as a verbal noun.

janbb's avatar

@Demosthenes Got it. Thanks.

Glambarber's avatar

Yes, it is possible to have two verbs in a sentence and the word “found” is a verb in that context.

LostInParadise's avatar

The main clause of the sentence is “She donated money” – subject, verb, direct object. Then there is an infinitive phrase, “to help found a wildlife refuge”. This phrase acts as an adverb describing “donated”. A phrase can have a verb without a subject.

Analyzing “to help found” is a little tricky. @Demosthenes may be of assistance. The problem is that “help” and “found” act together. How do we describe their relationship? Do we say that the phrase is an infinitive phrase for “to help” with “found a wildlife preserve” as a secondary phrase acting as a direct object? In any event, the phrase has two verbs and no subject.

Jeruba's avatar

There are three verbs: donated, help, and found. They are all properly used and placed, and the sentence is grammatically correct.

There is no preposition in this sentence.

That “help” with another verb can be tricky. We tend to use both constructions, with and without the “to,” with a probably indescribable shade of difference between them.

“Help me to move this table.” “Help me move this table.”

Perhaps the “to” is likelier when we need to tie the pieces together over a longer interval:

“I wish I could help everyone I know, and especially those who are struggling, to stay calm and focused during this difficult time.”

Zaku's avatar

Yeah, “to help found” is short for “to help to found” – they’re just infinitives adding description to the main verb of the sentence, as others have said.

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