In the sentence "Pete wants to paint," "wants" is of course the finite verb, and "to paint" is of course the infinitive. But is there a syntactic term for a construction such as "wants to paint"?
Here's a bonus question: In English, constructions such as the one just described can consist of three or more verbs, e.g. "wants to begin to change," and "needs to want to begin to change." These constructions each consist of one finite verb plus X number of infinitives.
Are there any languages in which equivalents to such constructions would consist of X number of finite verbs followed by one infinitive, as in this nonce English example: "needs wants begins to change"?