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"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad."

Is the 'be' in the sentence above an auxiliary 'be' or is it serving a main phrase verb?

From my textbook, the auxiliary 'be' occurs before the present participle of the main verb, but 'bad' is not a verb so I am leaning towards it being the main phrase verb, but the phrase 'to be bad' seems to be adjectival as it is describing things his neighbors call 'good'.

Edit: My new position is that this is just that 'to be' is an infinitive verb and I am over thinking it.

  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 17:55
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    @BillJ I posed the question as a disjunction between 'be' being an auxiliary verb and a main verb because my textbook says that although 'be' can serve as both an auxiliary verb and a main verb, if it does occur as both, for this class, we should designate it as a main verb. The defining feature for when 'be' is an auxiliary verb is when it precedes a main verb to create either the progressive form or the passive. –  Sep 01 '20 at 19:39
  • @EI Your book is wrong. See here:link Scroll down to the section headed 'List of Auxiliaries in English', where you'll see that even when "be" is the only verb, it is still an auxiliary. – BillJ Sep 02 '20 at 06:09
  • @BillJ Ahhh I see. The Wiki entry does not list 'linking verb' as a categorization separate to auxiliary verb, but as a possible semantic contribution of an auxiliary verb. –  Sep 02 '20 at 06:59

2 Answers2

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The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad.

I would advise you to avoid using the term 'main verb', since it's misleading.

"Be" is always an auxiliary verb, even when it's the only verb in the sentence.

Auxiliaries are verbs with the NICE properties (The acronym NICE means Negation, Inversion, Code, Emphasis). "Be" has those 'special' properties and hence is an auxiliary verb irrespective of its function in the clause.

Though "be" may indeed head copular clauses, it doesn't mean that it's a lexical verb elsewhere, it isn't; it's always an auxiliary.

Edit: you asked about "bad". Yes, it's an adjective in the infinitival clause "to be bad", where it serves as complement of "be". We say that "bad" is predicative because it refers to a predicand, in this case "the greater part of what my neighbours said".

BillJ
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  • Be/do; being/ doing; been/ done The above being so, doesn’t it comply with NICE?

    It is/ It does; It is being/ It is doing; It has been/ it has done…

    It is being so. Is it being so? No it is not being so. It is doing. Is it doing? It is not doing.

    It has been…Has it been?…It has not been… It has done…Has it done? …It has not done… I know that in some cases, there is a problem, like It has been happening/ It has been being...(?) But still, don't you think it also has the qualities of a usual verb? Just a thought...

     – Ram Pillai Sep 01 '20 at 17:01
  • "To be" is an auxiliary to what in this construction? According to the usual meaning of auxiliary verb a verb is an auxiliary to another verb in the process of giving that other verb a complex tense or aspect (is talking, was studying, were ** buying,…was taken**, …). – LPH Sep 01 '20 at 17:10
  • to be/ to do; to have been/ to have done; But, to be being/ to be doing...has a problem. "To be" functions like "to become", and I need to relate how it will be an auxiliary because it looks like a main verb. – Ram Pillai Sep 01 '20 at 17:21
  • @LPH. "Be" doesn't have to be auxiliary to anything. That's not how auxiliaries are defined. The 'C' in NICE, which stands for 'code', deals with that point. Compare "have" in "He has seen it and I have too". Here, "have" is not an 'auxiliary to anything' as you put it, but it is unarguably an auxiliary. – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 17:22
  • The usual way of looking at that is that what is usually called the main verb is ellipted. You can very well say "He has seen it and I have seen it too." . I don't find your argument convincing. Nevertheless I have the feeling that you are talking to us about new grammatical theory that not many people know about. – LPH Sep 01 '20 at 17:27
  • @LPH There's nothing new about NICE. The fact that "have" can be used without a complement demonstrates the C element of NICE. You cannot possibly talk of the properties of auxiliaries if you're not familiar with NICE. Go research it! – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 18:04
  • Is it incorrect to say that 'be' is part of a Linking Verb + Adjectival Subject Complement clause? It seems to be describing the belief with 'believe' being the main verb. I think this would make 'be' a linking verb. Also, if it's a linking verb cannot it not also be an auxiliary verb? –  Sep 01 '20 at 22:35
  • @BillJ, Could you give a link or reference to know more about NICE... – Ram Pillai Sep 02 '20 at 13:07
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This particular use of "to believe" and "to be" is recorded in Macmillan's dictionary

  • transitive - to have an opinion about what is true or what might happen, although there is no proof
    believe someone (to be) something:
    His friends wouldn’t believe him to be capable of murder.

The infitival clause "to be …" has then the function of object. According to more recherché grammatical characterizations "The greater part of what my neighbors call good " is the primary object or recipient and "to be bad" is the secondary object or theme Wikepedia.

Therefore "to be bad " is a unit and that shows that "to be" is not an auxiliary in this particular use but a linking verb linking the object The greater part of what my neighbors call good" to "bad".

LPH
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    That's wrong. In the OP's example it is an auxiliary for the reasons I gave in comments. You can't ignore the fact that it complies with NICE, irrespective of its use, and thus cannot be a lexical verb. Btw, "linking" is not a type of verb, but a term used in trad grammar, better referred to as "copular". – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 07:59
  • You cannot be serious when you say that the infinitival clause "to be ..." has the function of object!. It's not object but complement of "believe". Objects are noun phrases, not clauses. Tell me, are you a native speaker of English? – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 08:08
  • See here link Scroll down to a list of auxiliary verbs, and you'll find copula "be" is the first entry. – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 13:44
  • @BillJ You say I can't be serious calling the infinitival clause "to be ..." an object. I agree that considering this syntax as shown in the dictionary (see my reference in my answer, Macmillan) I have problems, difficulty in agreeing with the conclusion. It is nevertheless a fact that the verb is transitive, it must have an object. Now, I hope that you do not deny that infinitive clauses can be objects: https://www.englishgrammar.org/category/business-writing/. – LPH Sep 01 '20 at 17:47
  • It's clearly not an object. "Believe" is a catenative verb, and the infinitival clause "to be capable of murder" is its catenative complement. It's the intervening NP "him" that is object of "believe", a raised object to be precise. – BillJ Sep 01 '20 at 17:53