A Corpus- based Study of English Catenative Verbs among Native Speakers of English

The present study aims to examine the use of thirty catenative verbs as manifested in two corpora, namely, BNC and COCA in both the written and spoken sections which reflect the actual use of such constructions by native speakers of British and American English. Catenative verbs are categorized into three groups: group one that can be followed by either an infinitive or a gerund complement; group two is followed by an infinitive complement and group three is followed by a gerund complement. Native speakers face some difficulty in using group two and three verbs since they mix between the use of infinitives and gerunds. Results showed that the correct use of the catenative verbs of group two and three considerably outnumbered the incorrect use; thus results showed that some group two verbs were followed by gerund complements and some group three verbs were followed by infinitive complements