> I quote from my English dictionary:

>   "I'd like you to meet"
>   "I want him to know"
>   "my mother didn't want me to go out"
>   "do you wish me to ring you back?"
>   "he wanted us to go together"

> As far as I know, see, like, wish and want are all transitive verbs, so
> their subordinate clauses can be built in the same way, i.e. if I can say
>   "he wanted us to go together"
> then I can say, as well,
>   "he saw us to go together"

> Isn't it so? Why? Are there in English transitive verbs that are "more
> transitive" than others ones?
Not quite "more transitive" -- just "differently transitive". Object Complements function as Noun Phrases, all right, and that does make sentences with Object Complements transitive, but you shouldn't push the analogy too far.

Here's the Cliff's on Object Complements:

  1. Complements are Noun Clauses (i.e, clauses used as nouns), and they may function either as Subject or as Direct Object. In all the examples below the bold italic parts are Object complements.

    There are three major form classes of complements:

  2. Finite Clauses need Subjects, and in them Tense (either Present or Past) is marked on the verb, just like any sentence; they are sentences themselves, and can have their own complements, etc.
  3. (The Rules for Finite Clauses are:
    • There must be a Subject.
    • The Subject must be Nominative (and may not be Objective or Possessive).
    • The verb must express Tense.
    • The verb must agree with the Subject in Person and Number.)
  4. Non-Finite Clauses, on the other hand, don't inflect the verb for tense, though there are several kinds of compound infinitive or gerund (e.g, to have been seen is a Perfect Passive Infinitive, having introduced is a Perfect Gerund, etc.), which are available for the discerning speaker.

  5. Object Complements may be used only after certain verbs, and while all verbs that take Object Complements are transitive in some sense, not all transitive verbs may take Object Complements. E.g, kick is certainly transitive in most of its uses, but it does not take a complement in any use:
             He kicked *that Fred is here.
                       *Fred's being here.
                       *for Fred to be here.
    
  6. Not only does the main or matrix verb determine whether an object complement may be used, it also determines which type of object Complement may be used. I.e, some verbs like want may take only an infinitive:
    I want (you) to leave now.
    I want *(me/you, my/your) leaving now.
    I want *(that) I/you leave now.

    Whereas others, like try, may take either an infinitive or a gerund, but never a that-clause:

    I tried to waterski on one foot
    I tried waterskiing on one foot
    *I tried (that) I waterski on one foot
    (Some people notice a small and subtle difference between the two grammatical sentences above, but it's not always discernible.)

    .. and so on. Every verb that takes an Object Complement has a unique pattern of which complements it allows, whether the choice of complement makes a semantic difference or not, and what kind of difference it might make, which senses and tenses of the verb work with which choices, and which subclasses of complement are allowed, required, or forbidden.

  7. Some infinitives may have a subject (in the objective case), which may be introduced with for:
    He said for me to wait.
    Some may not use a for:
    He told me to wait.
    Some may not use a subject at all, especially if it's identical with the subject of the matrix verb:
    He intends to wait.
    Some infinitives (most, actually) use to, but many don't:
    He must (*to) go.
    He let me (*to) go.
    He had me (*to) go.
    Again, all of this is determined by the matrix verb.

  8. Some gerunds may have a subject (usually in the possessive case, though often in the objective):
    He resents my being smarter than he is. (possessive)
    He resents me being smarter than he is. (objective)
    Some speakers sense a small, subtle distinction between the two constructions, and others find the objective case usage prescriptively incorrect, though it is statistically the more common.

  9. Some that-clauses (the Indicative ones) use a regular tensed verb, while others (the Subjunctive ones) use the infinitive form of the verb, without other inflection:
    It's important that he is here today.
    It's important that he be here today.
    Once again, this is determined by the Matrix Verb.

  10. If you're learning English, you should learn these facts about each verb as you encounter it. They should be in any good English dictionary, like the ones published in England (Longmans, etc.) Do not use a dictionary published in the United States (Merriam-Webster, Random House, etc.) They do not contain such grammatical information because American English speakers are not generally taught enough about their language to understand it, and dictionary publishers exploit this fact by ignoring grammar.

Learning the grammatical facts of usage about verbs is roughly equivalent to learning the gender and declension of Latin nouns; it's just part of the language.

-- followup:

>In the sentence, "He liked pork chops so much that he ate them every
>day", what part of speech is "that" and what does it modify?
Well, of the classical Latin eight, this that doesn't really fit easily into any of the categories, which I suspect is the source of your question.

There's that demonstrative pronoun that in English, contrasting with this, these, and those in a paradigm, but in the sentence you give, that's clearly not the right that.

Then there's that that that introduces restrictive relative clauses, but again, since this isn't a relative clause, that can't be the that either.

If you feel constrained to explain it in terms of Latin grammar for some reason, you might get away with saying that it's the second half of the Subordinating Equative Correlative Conjunction so ... that ..., (like as ... as ...). Equative constructions contrast with Comparative more ... than ... and Superlative (the) most ... of ....

But that doesn't really help, because each of those constructions has its own very peculiar syntax, and saying it's half of a conjunction isn't saying very much.

What I'd call it is a Complementizer, like that that that introduces finite subject or object clauses:

That he's alive at all is astounding. (subject complement)
It's astounding (that) he's alive at all (object complement).
I think (that) he's alive. (object complement)

Note that this that complementizer is optional unless it introduces a sentence (try deleting it in the first example), and indeed it's optional in the sentence you cite:

He liked pork chops so much he ate them every day.
So that's one more argument for complementizer status.

Questions about "part of speech" usually don't help much in understanding English grammar, since English doesn't have nearly as much morphology (endings, roughly) as Latin. Instead English uses syntax -- the other half of grammar -- and word classes are much less useful than talking about "constructions".

A good reference is Chapter 15 of Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, which is devoted to Word Classes. In fact, Part III (English Grammar), consisting of Chaps 13 (Grammatical Mythology), 14 (The Structure of Words), 15, and 16 (The Structure of Sentences), all bear on this issue.

Sorry not to give you a more straightforward answer; perhaps Miss Fidditch wasn't teaching you English grammar.


  - John Lawler       Linguistics Department and Residential College     University of Michigan

    "Language is the most  massive  and  inclusive  art  we know,  a           - Edward Sapir
      mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations."       Language (1921)

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