DECIDING

This type involves two roles: a Decision-Maker (who is generally HUMAN) thinks to themselves that they will follow a certain Course (of action).

DECIDING verbs are basically transitive; the Decision-Maker is always in A and the Course in O syntactic relation.

We can recognize two subtypes:

(a) The RESOLVE subtype, focusing on one particular Course, e.g. decide (on), determine (on), resolve; plan (which intersects with WANTING).

(b) The CHOOSE subtype, preferring one Course out of a number of alternatives—choose and its hyponyms such as select, pick NP (out); appoint, elect; vote (for/on).

Verbs of the RESOLVE subtype may have the Course role realized as a THAT, or WH-, or Modal (FOR) TO or WH- TO complement clause (the subject of a FOR TO complement is most often identical to the main clause subject, and is then omitted, together with the for), e.g. Tom resolved that he would not be beaten, Father will decide whether we have lunch inside or out, The headmaster decided (for the girls) to go in front, John will determine where to erect the marquee. Decide (on) and determine (on) may also take an ING complement, which normally has its subject identical to main clause subject, and then omitted, e.g. He decided on (the gardener’s) pruning the roses this weekend.

There are two kinds of NP possible as Course. Decide (on) and determine (on)—but not, it seems, resolve or plan—may take a CONCRETE NP in O slot, e.g. Fred decided on a red shirt, John decided on the theatre this evening. But this NP is effectively the O (or other post-predicate constituent) of a complement clause, and is used as main clause O when the verb of the complement clause could be inferred by the addressee from the context— thus, Fred may have decided to wear, or to buy, a red shirt, and John may have decided to go to the theatre this evening.

Decide, determine and resolve have a further, related meaning (similar to one sense of settle), referring to someone indicating an appropriate Course where there had been some difficulty or doubt, e.g. John decided the dispute, Mary determined the order of precedence, Einstein resolved the paradox. Note that in this sense they take an ACTIVITY or other abstract NP in O slot, with no preposition on. (When used in this sense, verbs from the RESOLVE subtype may have a non-human NP in A slot, e.g. That final speech determined the result of the debate, Fred’s penalty kick decided the match.)

Choose has similar syntactic properties to decide (on) (excluding that mentioned in the last paragraph), occurring with THAT, WH-, Modal (FOR) TO, WH- TO and ING complement clauses, e.g. I chose that we should have Christmas dinner in the evening this year, I chose (for) Mary to give the vote of thanks, You choose who to give it to! There can be a CONCRETE NP as O but this always does imply some suppressed complement clause, e.g. Mary chose a teddy bear could in appropriate contexts be understood by the addressee to state that she chose to buy one, or to make one in her soft toys evening class, or to receive one out of the list of possible presents her grandmother had offered.

The other verbs in the CHOOSE subtype are hyponyms of choose (that is, choose could almost always be substituted for an occurrence of any of them). Select, pick (out), appoint and elect must have a CONCRETE NP, not a complement clause, in O slot. (There will often be included in the sentence some specification of what the choice is related to, e.g. Mary selected a teddy bear (as the Christmas gift from her grandmother), I appointed John (to be sales manager).) Vote (for/on) may take a THAT, or a WH- or a Modal (FOR) TO or a WH- TO complement or a concrete NP, e.g. I would have voted for Nixon to be impeached, I would have voted to impeach Nixon, I would have voted on whether to impeach Nixon, I would not have voted for Nixon (in any election).

Only decide and choose, the two most general and most frequently used verbs from the DECIDING type, may omit specification of the Course when it could be inferred from the context, e.g. ‘I don’t think we should attack the enemy today, sir.’ ‘It’s too late, Sergeant, I’ve already decided’ (sc. to attack them today) and ‘Why don’t you ask for that stereo set?’ ‘No, I’ve already chosen’ (sc. something else). Vote can occur without specification of Course, which is then taken to refer to the casting of a ballot, e.g. Are you going to vote this time around? (which might be said in an election year).