The construal of salience in atemporal complement clauses in English

Abstract

In Cognitive Grammar, expressions differ in meaning depending on not only the entities they designate but also the construals employed to structure their conceived scenes. The syntax of an expression is a reflection of its conceptual organisation, and represents the specific construal of the scene it describes. In atemporal (non-finite) complementation, causative constructions involving two participants in object position can appear in two syntactic forms: bare infinitive as in She made them go or to-infinitive as in She forced them to go. The construal which brings about the syntactic difference between the two complement clauses pertains to salience. When the speaker wants to give the complement clause initial salience, he opts for the bare infinitive. By contrast, when the speaker wants to give the complement clause subject initial salience, he chooses the to-infinitive. In each case, the meaning of the construction is determined by the particular way the speaker structures its scene, whereas its distribution is governed by the semantic compatibility between its internal parts.