I will die trying.
‘I’ is a subject, ‘will’ is a helping verb, ‘die’ a main verb. Correct? Is ‘trying’ being used as an adverbial phrase?
Hi.
“Die” is the base of an infinitive here. “Trying” is a participle, and it is working as an adjective.
Thanks.
An adjective can only modify a noun, pronoun. Is ‘die’ a noun here? I doubt it. Please let me know.
“Die” in that sentence is the base form of the main verb. It can’t be any form of the infinitive in that position. “Trying” is not working as an adjective, because there is no noun phrase for it to modify. It is, in fact, working as a one-word adverbial phrase (yes, in linguistics a “phrase”, in the sense of a sentence constituent, can be as small as one word) modifying “die”.
The sentence means, “I will die in the midst of trying.”
“Die” is the base of the infinitive, though it is not the infinitive itself here. Auxiliary verbs such as “will” take the base form of the infinitive, which of course is the verb minus “to.” I point this out to stress that it never changes and works with this auxiliary verb as a fixed unit. In other words, it cannot change with the subject or take participles.
“Trying” is indeed a participle. And it modifies “I.” It describes the person as the act occurs, but it does not say the manner in which the person dies.
I will die happy.
I will die trying.
Trying, I will die.
Falling, I grabbed the ledge.
He died unloved.
Is “happy” an adverbial phrase? No, but it works just as “trying” does and is obviously an adjective. According to your logic, there should be no noun to modify in that position. Is “trying” an adverbial phrase in the third sentence? No. “Falling” is not adverbial in the fourth sentence. “Unloved” is not adverbial in the final one. Thank you for attempting to help me understand that a single word could be a phrase, but that is not why I said it wasn’t adverbial. It directly describes the noun rather than telling us where, when, why, how, in what manner, to what extent, etc.
Hi Jamie
Do you mean the infinitive, ‘to die’, by “the main verb”? “It can’t be any form…”, what other forms are there?
Okay, if “trying” is not a participle adjective, then it should be a gerund. Can a gerund function as an adverb?
Please guide me.
“Trying” is not a gerund there. It is a participle.
Thanks, Mordant.
An infinitive is to+verb, where “to” is called a particle. Am I correct?
What do you mean where you say “According to your logic, there should be no noun to modify in that position.”? I think according to Jamie’s analysis “happy” is an adverb modifying “die”. What did you really mean?
“Trying” is DEFINITELY not an adjective in that sentence! It is not describing the subject, but the manner in which the person will die. It modifies the verb “die” and is a truncation of something like “in the process of trying”, which would be part of the verb phrase and modify the verb.
Your analogy with the adjective “happy” is false. The adjective “trying” has a completely different meaning. Look:
[color=darkblue]The man died happy.
= The man was happy when he died.
= He was a happy man when he died.
The man died trying.
= The man was trying when he died. (This means that he got on people’s nerves.)
= He was a trying man when he died. (This also means that he got on people’s nerves.)
The verb “die” in the sentence is not an infinitive or even part of an infinitive, because an infinitive cannot go into the position of the main verb. If you took the auxiliary “will” out of the sentence, “die” would still serve the main function.
It’s clear that a verb in that position is not an infinitive, because it can take inflection if the auxiliary is changed or removed:
[color=darkblue]This plant [will] die if you don’t water it.
This plant [ø] dies if you don’t water it.
This plant [is] dying.
They [will] die if you don’t water them.
They [ø] die if you don’t water them.
They [are] dying.
Certainly you can’t say that the present-tense verb “die” in, “They die if you don’t water them,” is an infinitive!