(FROM) ING

The (FROM) ING variety of complement clause occurs with negative verbs from the ORDER subtype of SPEAKING and with negative verbs from the MAKING type. It relates to the subject of the main clause doing something so that the subject of the complement clause does not become involved in the activity described by that clause.

We can first compare persuade and dissuade, positive and negative members of ORDER:

(56a) I persuaded John that Mary/he should go

(56b) I persuaded Mary to go

(57) I dissuaded Mary from going

Sentence (56a) has a THAT complement in post-object slot. Example (56b) has an underlying Modal (FOR) TO clause in post-object function; the complement clause subject must be coreferential with main clause object, and then omitted (together with for). Sentence (57) is exactly parallel to (56b); the difference is that with dissuade there is no corresponding THAT construction. The object NP may be passivized in (57) as in (56b), e.g. Mary was persuaded to go, Mary was dissuaded from going. The other ORDER verbs that occur in a (FROM) ING construction include discourage and prohibit. Forbid was originally used with a Modal (FOR) TO complement but nowadays an increasing number of speakers prefer a (FROM) ING complement, which accords better with the negative meaning of this verb. One hears both She forbade him to go and She forbade him from going, with no difference in meaning.

Looking now at positive and negative members of the MAKING type:

(58) I made her go

(59) I forced her to go

(60) I prevented her (from) going

Sentences (58)–(59) involve a Modal (FOR) TO complement clause in object function; the for must be omitted with verbs of this type, and complement clause subject becomes surface object of the main clause. Sentence (60) is a construction exactly parallel to (58)–(59), in the same way that (57) parallels (56b). The other MAKING verbs which take a (FROM) ING construction include stop, save, spare and special senses of check (oneself), rescue and release.

The interesting point here is that from can be omitted from a (FROM) ING complement following some negative MAKING verbs, and its omission carries a semantic difference. I prevented her going would be likely to be used when I employed some direct means, e.g. I blocked her path. In contrast, I prevented her from going would be the appropriate thing to say if I employed indirect means, e.g. I used my influence to make sure she didn’t get her passport renewed. ORDER verbs, such as dissuade, must include from, and this is at least partly because such verbs refer to the use of speech to bring about some result, which is necessarily an indirect means. (The other part of the reason may be syntactic—the fact that (57) relates to a post-object complement clause, and (60) to a complement clause in object function.)

The semantic effect of omitting from is very similar to that of omitting to from Modal (FOR) TO clauses. In each case the loss of a preposition implies a direct link between the referents of main clause and complement clause verbs. Note that, like to, from may be omitted from an active clause but is always likely to be retained in the passive, e.g. She was prevented from going, but scarcely *She was prevented going.