A question about the finite verb vs. non-finite verbs in a clause from Student M.

“I have a grammar question about the following sentences.

1) My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues, was recognized with an Eagle Award and Meritorious Award.

- “My ability to provide....” How come we don't need to say “My ability was to provide…”?

2) Until the water tank has been flushed and the water tested was safe to drink, I would advise the Post to provide bottled water or water dispensers.

- "Tested” is a verb right?”

Dear M.,

It seems from your questions that you don’t yet understand the concept of “finite verb” vs. “non-finite verb forms” in English clauses. This concept is very important to understand first because there can be many words that are derived from verbs in a clause, but there is only one “finite verb.”

You ask whether something is a “verb” in a sentence -- but this question is not helpful, because, actually, there can be many words/phrases “derived from verbs” (衍生自動詞的字/詞組）in a clause, but there can only be one “finite verb.”

It is absolutely essential to distinguish between a “finite verb” and all other non-finite verb forms in a clause. That is why the course devotes so much time to this distinction. 

You can find more detailed explanations about this in Sections 4 and 6 of the course.

As your questions are mostly related to non-finite verb forms (like participles and infinitives) being used as modifiers, you should especially check out Lessons 6.4 (about participle phrases, like “tested,” as modifiers) and Lesson 6.5 (about infinitive phrases, like “to provide….” as modifiers). 

Section 4, on the other hand, is all about finite verbs. In Section 4, you will learn about how there is only one “core” verb in any clause--the “finite” verb with the changed form showing tense, aspect, voice. There can be many “verb-derived” phrases in a clause, but these are not the core verb of a clause but rather act as modifiers. Any verb-derived phrase that is not the finite verb in a clause is “NON-finite.” 

For example, in the clause “I talked to the man eating ice-cream,” there is only finite verb, “talked” (with a changed form showing past tense etc.), but there is another verb-derived form, “eating.”

“Eating” is in a “NON-finite” verb form called a “participle” form. The role of “eating” in this clause is NOT the core verb in the clause but rather a modifier. It is a modifier to the noun phrase “the man”--”eating ice-cream” is an adjective to “the man” → “食緊雪糕的 男人". 

Section 6 has detailed explanations about participle phrase modifiers like “eating ice-cream.”

Anyway, if we look at an example like “I talked to the man eating ice-cream,” it should be clear why it is not useful to ask whether “something is a verb.” This is because both “talked” and “eating” are verb forms. HOWEVER, only “talked” is a FINITE VERB, that is, the only core verb of a clause, while “eating” is a non-finite verb form that is serving the purpose of an adjective.

The whole course is basically devoted to helping students understand this. 

Now, let’s look at your questions briefly. I can only provide brief explanations here because you first need to understand the distinction between “finite verb” and “non-finite verb modifiers” as well as what is explained in the lessons mentioned above. 

1.

[ My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues, was recognized with an Eagle Award and Meritorious Award. ] 

This whole sentence is ONE clause. It is one clause with one finite verb -- “was recognized.” This finite verb shows past tense, simple aspect, passive voice. (Finite verb forms are explained in detail in Section 4.)

Every clause has a subject that corresponds to the finite verb. In this sentence, the subject is “My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues”.    

This is a long noun phrase subject; but it doesn’t matter how long a noun phrase subject is, as long as it is one noun phrase, there is always one CORE noun, and everything else is either noun markers (e.g. articles) or ADJECTIVES modifying that core noun.

The core noun here is “ability” (能力）. What is all the other stuff around this core noun?

First, there is the noun marker “my” (a possessive noun marker).

What is “to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues”? 

It is an INFINITIVE phrase (lesson 6.5) that is acting as an adjective to the core noun “ability.” 

Think about it in the Chinese word order:

“My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues”.   

“我  provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues 的能力" 

The subject phrase is really just “ABILITY,” but it seems very long because there is a long adjective phrase modifying it.

If you look back at the whole sentence:

[ My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues, was recognized with an Eagle Award and Meritorious Award. ] 

“My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues” is the subject of this one-clause sentence. “Was recognized” is the finite verb. It corresponds to a “singular” subject because the core noun of the subject phrase, “ABILITY,” is singular. 

It does not matter what other modifiers we find in the subject phrase. Even when there are other nouns in the subject phrase that are plural, like “responses” and “issues”, it doesn’t affect the fact that the core noun here is “ABILITY.” All of this is explained in Sections 3.

Think of another shorter sentence with a similar structure:

[ My ability to speak German was recognized. ]

This is the same thing as your sentence. “My ability to speak German” is the subject phrase. “Ability” is the core noun. “My” is a noun marker. “To speak German” is an INFINITIVE PHRASE that is acting as an adjective to “my ability” here (L6.5).   The whole subject is “我 speak German 的能力".

The whole sentence is one clause. It has the subject “My ability to speak German” and the finite verb “was recognized.” 

Look at this similar sentence: 

[ My ability to make cookies was recognized. ] 

It doesn’t matter that there is the plural noun “cookies” within the infinitive phrase adjective “to make cookies,” because the core noun of “my ability to make cookies” is “ABILITY.” That is why the finite verb of the whole clause is still “was recognized” rather than “were recognized.” 

[ My ability to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues, was recognized with an Eagle Award and Meritorious Award. ] 

In all of these sentences, the infinitive phrases “to speak German,” “to make cookies,” and “to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues,” are all adjectives modifying “my ability,” forming long subject noun phrases.

You asked why the sentence is not “my ability WAS to provide…” 

That is because the sentence, as it is, has “WAS RECOGNIZED” as its finite verb, and “my ability to provide….” as the subject. 

If you want to rewrite the sentence, of course you can say: 

[ My ability was to provide timely and efficient responses, especially to emergency issues. ] 

But if you do this, of course we can’t have “was recognized” behind this.

If you rewrite it this way, the subject is “my ability”, and the finite verb is “was.” “To provide…..” is then an adjective phrase following “be.” (which is called a predicate adjective. This is explained in Section 6 as well). 

The writer of the original sentence wants to say “my ability was recognized” -- NOT “my ability was to provide….” 

2.

[ Until the water tank has been flushed ] and [ the water tested was safe to drink,] [  I would advise the Post to provide bottled water or water dispensers.] 

There are three clauses in this sentence as outlined above. Again, each clause has a subject and ONE finite verb.

The first clause has the subject “the water tank” and the finite verb “has been flushed.” The second clause has the subject “the water tested” and the finite verb “was.” The third clause has the subject “I” and the finite verb “would advise.” 

Your question is about the word “tested.”

In this sentence, “tested” is an adjective to the noun “the water”

(“the water tested” = test 咗的 水）

“Tested” is a NON-finite verb form derived from the verb “TEST.” It is a form called a “past participle.” Participles, just like infinitives, can be modifiers in a clause. Here, it is the adjective modifying the noun phrase “the water”. 

Just like “to provide…”, “tested” is also a non-finite verb acting as an adjective to a noun.

Lesson 6.4 has detailed explanations about participle phrases as modifiers, including what meaning they express. 

Ms. Charlotte