In (58), the degree adjunct very much, which modifies the verb want, cannot intervene between the subject and the PP predicate of the small clause.

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58

58

Non-finite clauses and small clauses are not normally found as independent clauses: they can only be subordinate to some other main predicate.
The italicized constituents in (57) are all small clauses:

57a I consider John a real idiot.

57b The chief inspector wants Margret in his office.

57c Emsworth got Galahad in trouble.It is evident that the small clauses are of different types. In (57a), the small clause consists of an NP John and a second NP a real idiot. The first NP acts as a subject to the second one. In (57b) and (57c), the small clause is composed of an NP and a PP, where the NP is the subject with respect to the pp predicate. That the italicized strings in (57) are constituents is supported by the fact that other material associated with the main verb of the sentence cannot occur internally to what we have called the small clause:

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It is not immediately obvious how to label the structure [the taxi driver innocent]. In the traditional literature on parsing, the term 'verbless clause' is sometimes used. This term serves to indicate that we have a constituent which has a propositional meaning, i.e. the same sort of meaning as a full clausal structure has, but it lacks any verb forms. In (54d), the constituent [the taxi driver innocent] corresponds to the sentence [the taxi driver to be innocent] in (54c) . In both sentences, the NP 'the taxi driver' is the subject of the predicate expressed by the AP 'innocent'. In the Government-Binding literature, constituents such as [the taxi driver innocent] are called "small clauses".

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54

Given the close similarity in meaning between (54b) and (54c), the minimal assumption is that the verb believe in (54c) is the same as that in (54b) and has the same theta grid. While in (54b) the second argument is associated with a finite clause, in (54e), the second argument is associated with a nonfinite clause. The theta roles in (54c) are saturated as in (56), with j standing for the non-finite clause.

(54d) is also very close in meaning to (54b) and (54c) , so we postulate that the verb believe is unaltered and has the theta grid in (55). Given this assumption, we need to assign to (54d) a structure that allows the saturation of the argument roles 1 and 2. The bracketing in (54d) will do that adequately.

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56

In (54a), the arguments are saturated as in (56), where j is the index of an NP. In (54b), similarly, the saturation of the arguments can be represented as in (56), with j now seen as the index of a subordinate clause.

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55

In (54a), both arguments of believe are realized by NPs. In (54b), one of the arguments of believe is realized by a finite clause. As the bracketing indicates, the corresponding argument is realized by a non-finite clause in (54c).

The bracketing in (54c) is meant to show that we consider 'the taxi driver' to form a constituent with 'to be innocent'. The justification for this analysis is essentially one of analogy. If we compare the sentences (54b) and (54c), we see that they are very similar in meaning. In (54b) the verb takes two arguments: one argument which is realized by the subject NP, and one argument which is realized by a sentence. On the basis of examples like (54a) and (54b) we deduce that the lexical entry of believe has the following theta grid:

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Koster (1978b) argues that what looks like a clausal subject in (48b) and in (49b) is not in the subject position. Observe for instance that (48b) cannot be embedded as such.

(ia) I wonder whether the robbery surprised all the inhabitants of Blandings.

(ib) *1 wonder whether [that the pig was stolen] surprised all the inhabitants of Blandings.(ib) can be made grammatical if we move the clausal subject to a final position and replace it by the pronoun it. As mentioned in the introduction, the pronoun it in examples such as (ic) seems to make no contribution to the semantics of the sentence. We return to this use of it in section 5.2.1.

(ic) I wonder whether it surprised all the inhabitants of Blandings [that the pig
was stolen].Similarly, Stowell (1981) suggests that object clauses also do not occupy the same position as the object NP. Observe, for instance, that in English the object NP the situation in (iia) can, and indeed must (cf. (ib) ) precede the adverbial adjunct very carefully, while an object clause must follow it.

**(iia) He explained the situation very carefully.

(iib) *He explained very carefully the situation.

(iic) *He explained that he was not going to leave very carefully.

(iid) He explained very carefully that he was not going to leave.**https://t.me/English_Syntax

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