I'm a teacher, working on verbs with my students--and I got stumped by this sentence: "Consumers are using products ... that are advertised to make us think they assist in weight loss"
the word "think" . . . not sure what it is. Thoughts?
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The ads cause us to think that these products assist in weight loss. think would be an infinitival complement of causative "make". – TimR Apr 11 '16 at 19:39
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You ask for thoughts about think? What do you mean exactly? – Færd Apr 11 '16 at 20:39
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You might want to take a look at When should a verb be followed by a gerund instead of an infinitive?, section Verbs Followed Only by the Simple Form (no “-ing” or “to”), – Scott - Слава Україні Apr 12 '16 at 02:38
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There are two ways that events can be used as the objects of nouns. First, a demonstrative pronoun can be used to refer to a separate clause ('we think that they assist'). The demonstrative pronoun can often be elided ('we think they assist'). The second way is to recast the separate clause as an object with a complement. This is done by 'raising' the subject of the new clause to the object of the calling clause, and making the new predicate into a complement by changing the verb to the infinitive ('we want that they assist' becomes 'we want them to assist'). The infinitive marker 'to' can sometimes be elided ('we made them assist'). In that case, the verb ('assist') is called a bare infinitive.
The verb 'think' in the original sentence is a bare infinitive of a complemented predicate, whereas the verb 'assist' is a present [habitual] tense verb of a demonstrative clause. Notice that the infinitives 'make' and 'think' assume the same tense as the verb 'are advertised', which they are nested under. Also note that a complemented object is not the object by itself (advertising didn't 'make us'). It is the event that involves the object and its complement (us + to think = we think).
"Consumers (plural noun) are (auxiliary verb with plural agreement) using (progressive participle) products (plural noun) ... (ellipsis) that (relative pronoun) [trace {the products}] are (auxiliary verb with plural agreement) advertised (passive participle) to (infinitive marker) make (infinite verb) {begin object which is an event} us (plural 1P pronoun raised to object) [elided marker 'to'] think (infinite verb) [elided demonstrative 'that'] {begin another event as a clause} they (plural 3P pronoun) assist (habitual verb with plural agreement) in (preposition) weight (compounded noun) loss (noun) {end demonstrative clause} {end complemented object}"
AmI
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Unfortunately, this is a complete analysis of things the OP didn't ask about, which still manages to leave the OP's question unanswered. If Molly V really is a teacher covering verbs in class, then she must know that think is a verb form. It's a bit odd that she doesn't realize that it's a bare infinitive. – deadrat Apr 12 '16 at 03:15
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@deadrat - Thank you. I was stupid and ran out of time. I edited to complete the answer. – AmI Apr 15 '16 at 19:08