English Language & Usage Asked by Mrpeech on December 16, 2020
In the sentence below. How many finites are there?
‘Interviewers ask respondents if they have been the victim of a crime in the past 12 months; if they have, respondents provide information about the nature of the incidents, including the race and ethnicity of the offenders.’
The first part of the sentence is straight forward enough.
Interviewers – subject; ask – finite.
After this however I’m a little confused. For example does ‘have been’ in ‘if they have been the victim’ qualify as a finite, as the meaning here is conditional.
Replace the first "if," - which is at best lazy but probably just plain wrong - with "whether." The result is a straightforward subordinate clause, the subject of which is "they" and the (finite) verb in which is "have been." The "have been" has tense, person, and number, which are the attributes of a finite verb.
After the semicolon, "have" and "provide" also have tense, number and person and are, therefore, finite.
In this sentence, the only non-finite verb is "including."
Answered by remarkl on December 16, 2020
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