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Usually, infinitives with 'to' are used to indicate adverbials of purpose.

e.g.

  1. I go downstairs to collect my parcel.
  2. In order to keep warm, my dog curls up on the rug beside my bed every evening.

Can we use present participles as adverbials of purpose, as shown in the following sentence:

She telephoned saying that she was not coming this evening.

Is 'saying' an adverb of purpose, or an accompanying circumstance(attendant circumstance)? In other words, the action described with 'saying' is happening at the same time or to be on the safe side, roughly at the same time as the action 'telephone' .

Same confusion with the following example sentences regarding whether the present participles indicate purpose or just accompanying circumstances:

Tom has gone meeting his girlfriend. He wrote a letter inviting me to his party.

I'm grateful for your help!

Anton
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Eglantine
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  • Yes, to infinitivals are commonly used in purpose adjuncts, but they are also found in catenative constructions, e.g. "Kim wants to go shopping", where the infinitival clause "to go shopping" is catenative complement of "wants". In your example, though, I'd say that "saying that she was not coming this evening" is an adjunct, but I'm not sure what subtype of adjunct it is. The same applies to your last two examples. – BillJ Mar 12 '21 at 12:16
  • I'm fine with Tom has gone drinking with his mates, but I can't say the same about Tom has gone meeting his girlfriend. I guess that's because *meeting* someone is usually an "action" that takes place at a specific time, whereas *drinking* is a "process" that can go on all night. – FumbleFingers Mar 12 '21 at 12:26
  • A purpose interpretation may be applicable but syntactically purpose adjuncts have defined structures, i.e. either a PP or a finite or infinitival clause. Gerund-participial (ing clauses) do not qualify. – BillJ Mar 12 '21 at 12:59

1 Answers1

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When words are deleted, there is always the risk of losing some of the meaning conveyed by variants containing more words. Participial clauses are a well-known example where this is often true.

In a related thread, I included

  • He slowed down, avoiding a person he didn’t want to run into.

as an adjunct showing 'Purpose [/ reason (involving a logical course of action taken)]'.

This ('avoiding' = 'in order to') is the default reading; the anteriority (merely happening prior to) and causal (showing cause and effect but no intention) readings should according to Gricean maxims (the submaxim here being 'use language the way most people will understand it to be meant') be forced (eg

  • He slowed down, by happy coincidence avoiding a person he didn’t want to run into.)

The 'purpose' usage is listed by Kortmann at a related thread.

..............

Your example,

  • She telephoned saying that she was not coming this evening.

would certainly be taken as containing a participial clause showing purpose: it seems the whole point of the phone call.

Edwin Ashworth
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  • I'm good with accepting that the default here is 'avoiding' = 'in order to', and 'by happy coincidence' forces the 'mere anteriority' sense. But it seems to me 'thereby' sorta straddles both senses. – FumbleFingers Mar 12 '21 at 12:31
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    I've rethought that, FF; it's causal rather than anteriority (the slowing down, intentional or not, brings about the miss). // About 'thereby': this bars the non-causal, mere anteriority, usage. Vocabulary.com has: << thereby shows cause and effect: "She forgot to tie her shoes, thereby tripping and falling down the stairs." >> Not [on] purpose! / 'He studied hard, thereby passing his A-Levels (here, deliberate, of course). / 'Sitting down in his favourite armchair, he took out his pipe' is purely anteriority. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 12 '21 at 13:02
  • Ah, right. Thanks for putting me straight - *causality* and *purpose* aren't necessarily the same thing. – FumbleFingers Mar 12 '21 at 13:02
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    Syntactically, purpose adjuncts are expressed by means of either a PP or a finite or infinitival clause, but not by a gerund-participial clause. "Saying that she was not coming this evening" does not therefore qualify as a purpose adjunct, though I’m not sure how to describe the subtype of adjunct that it is. – BillJ Mar 12 '21 at 13:08
  • Many thanks BillJ. Could I take it as such that logically or semantically, there are cases where present participles indicate purpose, but syntactically, it does not qualify as a purpose adjunct? – Eglantine Mar 12 '21 at 13:30
  • @Eglantine In for example, "He left home at 6am, catching the early train", one might claim that the purpose of leaving at 6am was to catch the early train". Even semantically, a purposive meaning is marginal here at best, and syntactically it does not qualify as a purpose adjunct. In fact, one could claim that it has a resultative meaning. – BillJ Mar 12 '21 at 14:07
  • Even semantically, a purposive meaning is marginal here at best, and syntactically it does not qualify as a purpose adjunct. In fact, one could claim that it has a resultative meaning. – Eglantine Mar 12 '21 at 14:50
  • This explantion makes good sense to me. Many thanks BillJ! ：） – Eglantine Mar 12 '21 at 14:59