- I want to go
Here 'want to' is a phrasal modal. Do we agree?
Now consider this:
- I want him to go
Is it possible that in this sentence the pronoun him is the object of the modal auxiliary 'want to'?
Most grammars analyze this totally differently, with 'want' as the main verb and "him to go" as an infinitive functioning as the object of want. I've found in my field (natural language generation) that this causes lots of problems. If you make him the object of the auxiliary "want to", which is admittedly something I never heard of before, it makes the logic more consistent with fewer exceptions.
In verb phrase ellipsis, the verb phrase is dropped leaving just the auxiliary behind (the CODE property). In this you can see strong evidence that "want to" and "want obj to" are auxiliaries.
Examples:
Do you want to go home? No, I don't want to
Notice the "to" can not be dropped because it is part of the phrasal modal.
Do you want him to go home? No, I don't want him to.
Can Paul come to my party? If you want him to
Here you see that "him" is part of the auxiliary - the object of want to.