Verbal complementation after cause, command, and suffer

Unmatched finite intensity after high-frequency verbs of influence.

No English-language text is similar to the Book of Mormon in its intensity of finite verbal complementation in general, most notably after its three most common verbs of influence: cause, command, and suffer (intensity = rate × instances). The hundreds of clausal complements after these verbs constitute very strong evidence that Joseph Smith did not word the Book of Mormon.

A syntactic structure with finite verbal complementation can be as simple as this example: “they caused that he should be bound” (aa3029). A complementizer that comes after the verb of influence (suasive verb), almost always followed by a modal auxiliary verb in the Book of Mormon, most often should. The infinitive equivalent would be “they caused him to be bound.”

Verbal complementation after cause, command, and suffer began in Late Middle English as mostly infinitival, and average usage became even more infinitival through the centuries. Consequently, the dominant finite nature of verbal complementation in the Book of Mormon exhibits an un-English pattern.

Table 1. Finite verbal complementation after three suasive verbs in the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith dictated the finite–infinitive binary for these verbs differently from how English was ever spoken natively, from the time these constructions arose in Late Middle English. In addition, English was never written this way either, except in a few rare cases of foreign-language translation. Even so, among these rare outliers, no text is consistently finite like the Book of Mormon. One outlier with mostly finite command syntax, has no finite cause syntax; another outlier with mostly finite cause syntax, has no finite suffer syntax. [1483, A14559 • 1620, A69245]

John Bunyan’s Holy War (1682) is a finite outlier as well, but still mostly infinitival. His other writings are even more infinitival. The reason I mention this is because some say that Bunyanesque English influenced Joseph Smith. There is plenty of counterevidence to such a claim.

In the case of verbal complementation after the verbs cause, command, and suffer, Smith dictated 305 more finite complements than Bunyan wrote for The Holy War. After adjusting for text length, the number is about 275 more finite complements. Moreover, Bunyan did not use any finite complements after the verb suffer, not even in thirty-eight other writings checked, more than 120 times.

Table 2. Finite verbal complementation after three suasive verbs in Bunyan’s Holy War.

As shown in Tables 1 and 2, the intensity of finite complementation after the verb cause in the Book of Mormon compared to Bunyan’s Holy War is approximately seventy-eight versus two; after the verb command, roughly ninety-five versus four; and after the verb suffer, forty versus zero.

Joseph Smith dictated finite complements after these verbs well above fifty percent of the time, while Bunyan wrote at a rate well below fifty percent, even though Bunyan was a speaker of Early Modern English and Joseph was a speaker of Late Modern English. Smith was born 177 years later, at a time when finite complementation after these verbs was increasingly marginal and employed at even lower average rates. Thus Bunyanesque influence on the Book of Mormon’s suasive verbal complementation is contraindicated.

Table 3 shows that King James usage is quite different as well.

Table 3. Finite verbal complementation after three suasive verbs in the King James Bible.

Tables 2 and 3 also show that a high finite complementation rate after one verb (relative to historical averages) did not automatically lead to similar finite rates after other verbs. The rates are not closely correlated. The King James Bible’s relatively high finite rate after the verb command contrasts with only one percent finite causatives. The same is true in other texts, such as in Bunyan’s Holy War. The finite rates for the verbs command and cause are one-third and above; the rate for suffer is zero. Roughly speaking, pseudo-archaic texts follow biblical tendencies in this regard. The twenty-five texts tracked for this study do not have any finite complementation after causative verbs.

These things certainly argue against Joseph Smith authoring the Book of Mormon’s hundreds of occurrences of finite verbal complementation.

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