Infinitive Construction Research Articles

La-fala:lac’a ħĭčʾey

This paper presents and discusses a text in the Tigre language, delivered by a speaker of the Samhar dialect. The accompanying notes indicate several grammatical issues that arise from the text and are either specific to this dialect or have never been discussed explicitly in the Tigre literature. Among these are: receding vowel harmony in rounding, length in closed syllables, the two-syllable stress window, the purposive əgəl in the infinitive construction and in object marking, the connectives yɛni and ende, negation, focus and direct and indirect speech.

The Ancient Egyptian Second Infinitive? ‘iw + subject + r + infinitive’ Interpreted Through the Biblical Infinitive Absolute and the Polish Second Infinitive

Infinitives and infinitival constructions seem to be a kind of conceptualization embedded in a language with a ‘genus’ different to that of other grammatical forms. But why did human cognition invent infinitives and their associated constructions? On an ontological level, infinitives indicate intentionality that is pro-modal and timeless future-situationoriented (Prokopowicz 2012). Timeless future orientation expresses accomplishment or achievement, which are different states of perfectivity. If verbal finished forms direct our attention to the complexity of events, which we can for instance classify and express in ‘eventive’ sentences, infinitival forms draw our attention to situations (for a different context, see Borghouts 2010: ‘situative clauses’; Prokopowicz 2012: ‘quality, state, activity, event vs situation’). Situations are more complex than events as they involve a speaker with varying intentions, as well as the cotext of this speaker’s expression. Infinitival forms are less sentence-projected and more discourse-projected.All of this research has an obvious hermeneutical background. If something is expressed syntactically in one language, it may as well be expressed morphologically or semantically in other languages.

Tense and Aspect in English Infinitives

This article investigates the temporal and aspectual composition of infinitival complementation structures in English. I show that previous classifications of tense in infinitives are insufficient in that they do not cover the entire spectrum of infinitival constructions in English. Using the distribution of nongeneric, nonstative, episodic interpretations as a main characteristic, I show that infinitival constructions fall into three classes: future irrealis infinitives, which allow episodic interpretations with bare VPs; simultaneous infinitives that do not allow episodic interpretations; and simultaneous infinitives that allow episodic interpretations depending on the matrix tense. I argue that the three classes of infinitives are derived from the following properties: future infinitives are tenseless but involve a syntactically present future modal woll; simultaneous propositional attitude infinitives impose the now of the propositional attitude holder as the reference time of the infinitive; and certain simultaneous infinitives form a single temporal domain with the matrix clause. The analysis proposed has consequences for the composition of tense and aspect, the syntax of infinitives, and the way selection is determined.

Substituição do gerúndio pela construção a + infinitivo no Português Europeu (estudo diacrónico)

SUBSTITUTION OF THE GERUND FOR THE CONSTRUCION A + INFINITIVE IN EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE (DIACHRONIC STUDY)
 The article aims to specify the period in which the gerund in Portuguese has given way to a + infinitive construction in syntactic positions in which the infinitive predominates also in the contemporary European Portuguese (periphrastic formations estar a + infinitive, ficar a + infinitive, continuar a + infinitive and andar a + infinitive, in semi‑predicative clauses). In this analysis the electronic corpus (www.corpusdoportugues.org) was used. The analysis shows that the period sought must be located in the 19th century (or slightly before), when the infinitive construction starts to appear with greater frequency than in previous centuries.

Characteristically Late Spellings in the Hebrew Bible


 
 
 According to current scholarly consensus, the pre- and post-exilic strata of Biblical Hebrew differ sufficiently to allow for the relative dating of biblical texts on linguistic grounds. Challengers to this view have objected that the received orthography of the Hebrew Bible, which is fuller than that of any pre-exilic epigraphic source, shows that no pre-exilic biblical text escaped post-exilic spelling revision. Moreover, so it is claimed, susceptibility to scribal modification on the level of orthography implies susceptibility to scribal modification on the higher linguistic levels as well (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon), which would effectively obscure a text’s original linguistic profile. In the present article it is argued that the degree of scribal modification involved in the process of orthographical revision was not so great as to distort irremediably the picture of linguistic development seen in biblical literature, so that distinctively late linguistic features can still be distinguished from their classical counterparts. Significantly, as has been argued elsewhere, diachronic development is still discernible even in the domain of orthography, a fact demonstrated on the basis of several examples, including the spelling of the (li)qṭol-pattern qal infinitive construct.
 
 

Syntactic information in bilingual Lithuanian lexicography

The main aim of the article is to analyse which types of syntactic information should be included in bilingual dictionaries where Lithuanian is the target language. The article discusses specific features of bidirectional dictionaries and differences between the syntactic information given in bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. Also discussed are principles for selecting syntactic information on Lithuanian as a target language, general syntactic features which are relevant in lexicography, ways of presenting government and valency and the importance of contrastive analysis for bilingual lexicography. Although syntactic information on lemmas and their equivalents is not a new subject in lexicographic theory and practice, syntactic information on Lithuanian as a target language has not yet been investigated, as no dictionaries for foreign users of Lithuanian have been compiled and published. The investigation is mostly based on experience and empirical data from the “Norwegian-Lithuanian dictionary”.The analysis leads to the conclusion that the most important information to provide about Lithuanian equivalents in bilingual dictionaries is verb government and valency. The most valuable information for the users of bilingual dictionaries illustrates the syntactic differences between the source and the target language, and this information can be identified by applying a contrastive method. The relevant syntactic information can be given next to the equivalents or in the examples. Case marking, obligatory use with prepositions as well as subordination of infinitive constructions can be shown next to the equivalents. As a minimum, the syntactic information on Lithuanian verbs should state if the verb takes another object case than the accusative. It is necessary to provide equivalents with the obligatory components of valency, while facultative components might be shown in the examples. Syntactic information should be provided for phrases as well as for single-word equivalents. In the examples one can show the variety of the syntactic features of the Lithuanian equivalents and highlight the differences between the syntactic features of the Norwegian lemmas and their Lithuanian equivalents. Examples can also be used to show specific syntactic constructions which do not exist in Lithuanian and provide information on congruous syntactic features of both languages.It is hardly possible to present the syntactic features of both languages equally detailed in bilingual bidirectional dictionaries. As lemma lists and examples are usually compiled on the basis of the source language, it usually turns out that the target language is provided with less information, and it is complicated to analyse and highlight the grammar of all the equivalents of the source language.

The inflected/non-inflected infinitive alternation in Portuguese adverbial clauses. A corpus analysis

This paper investigates the alternation between the Portuguese inflected and uninflected infinitive in adverbial contexts on the basis of extensive corpus analyses and from a cognitive-functional perspective. We propose a multifactorial analysis of several variables that could influence the choice between both infinitives. These variables are inscribed within three underlying principles proposed in former literature: higher autonomy of the infinitival clause, lower infinitival subject accessibility and stronger verbality of the infinitive would lead to an increased use of the inflected form. Both a classification tree and a logistic regression analysis offer converging evidence for the validity of autonomy and subject accessibility: infinitival clauses are more prone to the use of an inflected infinitive when they show more semantic–syntactic autonomy and when their subject is less accessible. As for the verbality principle, we found a difference between morphosyntactic and semantic verbality: infinitives that have explicit morphosyntactic marks of their verbal status are indeed more easily inflected. However, contrary to expectations, infinitives that are semantically less prototypical verbs (states and less dynamic verbs), are more easily inflected. We interpret these findings in terms of the “Differential Infinitive Marking” (analogous to differential object/subject marking) and clausality: the inflected infinitive marks the clausal nature of the infinitive construction.

Argument inheritance and left periphery in Hungarian infinitival constructions

Hungarian infinitival constructions have both mono-clausal and bi-clausal properties at the same time. The arguments of the infinitive behave the same way as the arguments of the finite verb do, but the non-finite verb has its own left periphery. After discussing the general description of Hungarian sentence structure and presenting an HPSG analysis for it – including a description of the connection between word order and scope order in the Hungarian left periphery – this paper presents an analysis for Hungarian infinitival constructions. The analysis lexically distinguishes the left peripheral arguments of the infinitive from its complements, and allows the infinitive and its left peripheral arguments to form constituents, while the complements of the infinitive are inherited to the finite verb.

Transitivity of Spanish perception verbs: a gradual category?

<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" lang="EN-GB">This article examines to what extent perception verbs occurring in a syntactically transitive scheme are also semantically transitive. Indeed, since the perception process represents a mental rather than a physical contact between the perceiver/subject and the stimulus/object, it should be distinguished from the prototypical transfer of energy. It is shown that the semantic and conceptual differences between the perception modalities influence on the linguistic behaviour of Spanish perception verbs. In this perspective, the verbs <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ver</em> (<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to see</em>), <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oír </em>(<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to hear</em>), <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mirar </em>(<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to look at</em>) and <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">escuchar </em>(<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to listen to</em>) are ranged on a scale of transitivity. The validity of the elaborated hierarchy of transitivity is verified by means of empirical data. Based on a large corpus of infinitive constructions, it will be examined to what extent the position of a perception verb on the scale of transitivity correlates with the preferred case markings of its stimulus/object. A specific morphosyntactic phenomenon is studied, namely the special marking of the DO by the prepositional accusative.</span> <!--[endif] -->

Een hengel voor te vissen: Marktplaats.nl als corpus voor onderzoek naar regionale variatie

In this squib, it is suggested that the auction website Markplaats.nl constitutes a valuable corpus for the linguistic study of regional variation. By way of example it is shown that the infinitival construction with voor te rather than om te is more widespread in the Netherlands than has been claimed in the literature.

Oblici zasićenosti - diskretni i neprekidni događaji u arhitektonskom projektovanju

This essay addresses the opportunities and limits of architectural design at the juncture of technology and disciplinary specific developments in architecture. The theoretical model that it develops encapsulates the essences of what it means to work with respectively digital and analogue modeling systems. It poses a release from the continuous crisis of architectural education in coping with the onslaught of the digital. Moreover, it addresses the uncritical obsession that architectural academia has with this technology without relapsing into the various forms of reactionary practices that are currently emerging in the profession as well as the schools. The discussion focuses on systems and regimes of representation within architectural design and production and problematizes the role of digital and computational design procedures with respect to analogue systems of representation, architecture's infinite construction of our physical environment and the inherent limitations of digital systems given their 'rational' character. The essay attempts to address the influence and status of the digital by focusing on an inclusive notion of space. This is both architectural space but also the productive design space in which architects work. In unfolding the argument, three artworks have been discussed and the initial premise for the argument is based on art theory.

Логічна модальність у німецькій мові та засоби її вираження

У статті досліджується проблема логічної модальності. Інфінітивні конструкції розглядаються як засоби вираження логічної модальності. Зроблена спроба аналізу способів вираження логічної модальності в сучасній німецькій мові.

Ne+ infinitive constructions in Old English

The occurrence of the Old English negative particlene‘not’ preceding a bare infinitive rather than a finite verb is a largely neglected or overlooked phenomenon. It is attested in constructions withuton‘let's’ and in conjoined clauses with omission of the finite verb (Mitchell 1985). This article discusses evidence gathered mainly from theYork–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, showing that it is a phenomenon that needs to be taken seriously in descriptions and analyses of Old English. It is argued that the factor shared by the two constructions is the lack of an available finite verb forneto attach to. It is also found that the use ofnefor the purpose of negative concord appears to be more variable with infinitives than it is with finite verbs. Whether attachment ofneto a non-finite verb in the absence of a finite one is restricted to bare infinitives is difficult to determine because of the limited evidence relating to other non-finite forms, but there are some indications that use ofnemay have been possible with present participles. Finally, some implications that thene+ infinitive pattern has for the formal analysis of Old English are discussed.

The meaning of the NAATA + infinitive construction in basse mandinka

Abstract Alexander Andrason. The Meaning of the NAATA + Infinitive Construction in Basse Mandinka. Lingua P osnaniensis, vol. L IV (1)/2012. T he P oznań Society for the A dvancement of the A rts and Sciences. PL ISSN 0079-4740, ISBN 978-83-7654-103-7, pp. 7-19. Purpose: T he present paper aims at providing a detailed description of values and uses offered by the NAATA form - an analytic Mandinka construction formed by means of the auxiliary naa ‘come’, employed itself in the so-called ‘TA tense’, and the infinitive of the main “meaning” verb. In that manner, we intend to rectify an important lacuna in grammatical studies of the Mandinka language which have almost entirely ignored the issue of the NAATA locution. Method: A detailed map of the semantic content of the NAATA form will be designed, specifying its temporal, taxis, aspectual and modal implications, as well as certain textual properties. A ll the values will be illustrated by instructive examples provided by ten native Mandinka speakers (i.e. residents of Basse and neighboring villages: Manne K unda, Bassending, Mansajang and K aba K ama) and collected by the author in 2010 and 2011. Results: T he evidence shows that the meaning of the NAATA construction corresponds to a present perfect (resultative, iterative, inclusive, experiential and indefinite), to a past tense (immediate, recent, general and remote) and to a perfective aspect (punctual, terminative and ingressive; less commonly the locution approximates a simple past). A dditionally, the formation expresses certain modal concepts, such as non-intentionality, accidentality or spontaneity of a corresponding perfect or past event. A s far as textual properties are concerned, the NAATA form is found both in discourse and narration, being able in the latter case to introduce events of the narrative foreground. Conclusion: T he author demonstrates that the values displayed by the construction (with an exception of the modal senses) can be connected and a definition, which exceeds a simple inventory of uses, may be provided if one views the locution from a dynamic evolutionary perspective, i.e. as a manifestation of one of the developmental scenarios governing the grammatical evolution of original resultative constructions, namely as a realization of the anterior path. Furthermore, the modal senses of the NAATA form may be related to the anterior trajectory (and to its meanings-stages) if we make use of the evidential path, an evolutionary possibility which links the grammatical life of resultatives with determined modal domains. T his latter proposition, however, needs a more profound analysis and will constitute one of the research activities, conducted by the author in the future.

Complementation patterns of the verb try

Este estudo teve por objetivo investigar os fatores que determinam a escolharealizada por usuários da língua inglesa quanto à forma de complemento seguinteao verbo try, com foco em dois dos quatro padrões de complementação admitidospor esse verbo, a saber, pseudocoordenação (i.e. try and + infinitivo nu) e try +infinitivo nu. Realizou-se um estudo de corpus, no qual a influência de seis fatoressobre o comportamento dos complementos verbais sob investigação pôde ser avaliada: mudança linguística (1810-2009), variação dialetal (inglês britânico vs.norte-americano), suporte (oral vs. escrito), gênero discursivo, distinção semânticae horror aequi (i.e. a tendência de evitar a repetição de estruturas similares emadjacência). De modo geral, os resultados deste estudo sugerem, por um lado, queambas as construções são mais frequentes em inglês britânico, em gêneros orais eem gêneros escritos menos conservadores (e.g. ficção); por outro lado, elestambém indicam que (i) as construções são semelhantes entre si em significado, (ii)o princípio horror aequi não parece operar na determinação de suas ocorrências, e(iii) a mudança linguística ao longo do tempo ainda não as tornou os principaissintagmas regidos por try. Relevantemente, as conclusões obtidas através destapesquisa têm uma gama de implicações significativas para a avaliação de alegaçõesprévias sobre o verbo encontradas na literatura. Por fim, elas também apontamperspectivas para pesquisas futuras.

English Nominal Clauses: Analyzing the Translation of Subordinate wh – Interrogative Clauses and Infinitive wh - Clauses in Azeri

This paper considers the Azeri translation of English nominal clauses with subordinate wh –interrogative clauses in complex sentences. Moreover, in this research, infinitive wh – clauses have been studied. Based on Quirk et alʼs classification of nominal clauses (clauses approximating in function noun phrases) ,they fall into six major categories: That –clause or subordinate declarative clauses, Subordinate interrogative clauses, Subordinate exclamative clauses, Nominal relative clauses, To - infinitive clauses and Ing clauses. An infinitive wh – clause can be formed with all wh –words. The infinitive clause has an sense .In this paper, the data are drawn from studies based on the English – Azeri translated fictions. According to the results of the present study, 78% of these sentences in Azeri, translated as simple sentences involving verbal combinations, 12% translated as simple sentences without verbal combinations, 6% translated as complex sentences and 4% translated as compound sentences. Regarding the structures involving infinitive construction, the findings indicate that 68% translated as simple sentences consisting verbal combinations, and 32% translated as complex sentences. It can be said that, in Azeri, there is a tendency of using simple sentences instead of compound or complex ones. The results of this research also show that there are some mistranslations regarding the nominal clauses involving both wh –interrogative and infinitive constructions, due to ignoring of the obligational sense of these clauses in Azeri translation, the percentage of these mistranslations is 86%. In this research, the most frequent wh –interrogative word used in original texts, is what in 32 sentences and the least one, is whom in 7 sentences, in addition, the most frequent wh – interrogative word used in subordinates involving both wh – words and infinitive construction in original texts is how with the percentage of 53% and the least one is where with the percentage 11%.

Diachronic aspects of borrowing aspect: the role of Old French in the development of the be going to + INF construction

This paper sheds new light on the provenance of the be going to + infinitive (INF) construction with future time reference, and more precisely on the question of whether it was borrowed from Old (OF), during the Middle English (ME) period. Although this assumption is debatable, several authors have claimed that a transfer of this construction from French to English is plausible and probable since the contact situation that arose between 1066 and 1400 was most intense and must have had an impact on ME. This paper focusses on the (structural) syntactic and semantic parallelism in the source and target languages, since they are a prerequisite for structural borrowing, even if form and meaning may be modified in this process. With respect to structure, the OF construction aler +INF can be considered a potential source of the ME constructions go +INF and go + to +INF, regardless of the presence of to , which can already be considered an infinitive marker we will shown in detail. The meaning of the constructions is ambiguous in both languages between a movement of going with a subsequent event and an aspectual interpretation, which is inchoative. This inchoative aspect is also a plausible interpretation for many occurrences of ME go +INF. The aspectual constellation also explains the fact that the Modern English construction only appears in the continuous form, which represents the event as if we put ourselves within the event and viewed it in its development. [...] The use of the progressive form represents the activity a state'' (Haegeman/Gueron 1988, 534f). This is what Jespersen calls a temporal frame around a given time. The development go +( to )+INF be going to INF therefore occurs for independent reasons and is bound to the obligation to use the continuous form in this particular aspectual context. On the basis of the investigation presented in this paper, we can make the following assertions about the development of the ModE be going to +INF construction: A. The aspectual meaning of go +( to )+INF is due to one or more of the following factors: a. language contact, i.e. OF (Anglo-Norman) aler +INF forms; b. grammaticalisation of a movement verb similar to OF processes, but independent of them; c. language-internal lexical influence: confusion of ME gan 'go' with 'begin'. B. The development of go +( to )+INF to the ModE be going to +INF is an independent process, posterior to the development of the ME construction.

Grammatical Similarities between Nineteenth-Century Hasidic and Maskilic Hebrew Narratives

This paper comprises the first comparative linguistic analysis of Hasidic and Maskilic Hebrew narrative literature composed in the second half of the nineteenth century in Eastern Europe. Its main contention is that the Hasidic and Maskilic corpora have a high degree of morphological and syntactic correspondence, with a comparable distribution of biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and independent features. These findings have significant implications for Early Modern Hebrew research as they represent the first challenge to the traditional view that Hasidic and Maskilic Hebrew have little in common, the former being regarded as largely rabbinic-based and the latter as mainly biblicizing. The paper demonstrates these arguments by examining a selection of shared phenomena including the biblically derived wayyiqṭol and infinitive construct without lamed prefix; the rabbinic masculine plural with nun suffix and qal yiqtṭol of II- and III-guttural and stative roots; the medieval qal infinitive construct of I- yod and I- nun roots with subject suffix; and independent features including the retention of the definite article following inseparable prepositions, unapocopated wayyiqṭols , the qạtal in past progressive and habitual contexts, the particle הנה + infinitive construct, and the technique of shibbuṣ . These points are illustrated with examples from Hasidic tales published by the prominent collectors M. L. Rodkinsohn and M. M. Bodek, and from Maskilic prose fiction by a range of authors including S. J. Abramowitz, J. L. Gordon, A. Mapu, and P. Smolenskin.

A note on the infinitive and analytical construction in the language of our laws: In view of professor V. Rakic-Vodinelic's justified criticism

Dosledna zamena infinitiva sa analitickom konstrukcijom, kakva je preduzeta u novom ZPP-u, rđava je i jezicki neutemeljena spojava koja je neocekivano nastetila ugledu nase nomotehnike.

Tense and control interpretations in gerund-participle and <i>to</i> infinitive complement constructions with verbs of risk

This study investigates temporal and control interpretations with verbs of risk followed by non-finite complements in English. It addresses two questions: Why does the gerund-participle show variation in the temporal relation between the event it denotes and that of the main verb whereas the to -infinitive manifests a constant temporal relation? Why does the gerund-participle construction allow variation in control while the to -infinitive shows constant subject control readings? The study is based on a corpus of 1345 attested uses. The explanation is framed in a natural-language semantics involving the meanings of the gerund-participle, the infinitive, the preposition to , and the meaning-relation between the matrix and its complement. Temporal and control interpretations are shown to arise as implications grounded in the semantic content of what is linguistically expressed. It is argued that the capacity of a natural-language semantic approach to account for the data obviates the need to have recourse to purely syntactic operations to account for control. Cette etude porte sur les interpretations temporelles et de controle avec des verbes exprimant la notion de risque suivis par des complements infinitifs ou gerondifs en anglais. Deux questions y sont abordees : Pourquoi le gerondif montre-il une variation dans la relation temporelle entre l’evenement qu’il denote et celui du verbe de la principale, tandis que l’infinitif manifeste une relation temporelle constante? Pourquoi la construction gerondive est-elle caracterisee par une variation de controle alors que l’infinitif produit des lectures constantes de controle par le sujet? Un corpus de 1345 exemples attestes est examine. L’explication est formulee en termes d’une semantique de langage naturel fondee sur les signifies linguistiques du gerondif, de l’infinitif, de la preposition to et le rapport semantique entre le verbe de la principale et son complement. Il est demontre que les interpretations temporelles et de controle sont des implications fondees sur le contenu semantique de ce qui est exprime linguistiquement. On soutient que la capacite d’une semantique de langage naturel de rendre compte des donnees elimine le besoin d’avoir recours a des operations purement syntaxiques pour expliquer le phenomene du controle.