Non-finite Complements Research Articles

Uncovering Variation in Word Englishes: Finite vs Non-finite Complementation of remember with Prospective Meaning

Remember is a polysemous verb that can govern finite and non-finite complement clauses (CCs). This paper explores the variability between finite and non-finite CCs that follow remember with the prospective meaning ‘remember to do’ (as in Remember to do your homework), looking at three Asian World Englishes – Indian English, Sri Lankan English and Bangladeshi English – and British English, as represented in the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). The prospective use of remember is traditionally classified as allowing to-infinitival CCs as the only complementation option (Cambridge Dictionary Online, “remember”; FrameNet; Oxford Dictionaries Online, “remember”; Huddleston and Pullum et al. 2002, 1242; Mair 2006, 215). However, large databases such as GloWbE reveal the existence of finite CCs with this meaning that depend on remember. The analysis of these CCs in competition, in terms of both distribution and a series of language-internal and external variables, confirms that those which increase complexity (e.g. longer CCs in number of words) favour the choice of finite CCs, in line with the Complexity Principle.

Sensitivity to finiteness in attitude verb interpretation

Children are sensitive to syntactic structure when learning new verbs (Gleitman 1990). This has been shown in tracking transitivity (Naigles 1990), as well as in hypothesizing meanings for attitude verbs (Harrigan et al 2019). In English, desire and belief subcategories of attitude verbs have different finiteness properties; desire verbs occur with finite complements and belief verbs occur with non-finite complements. The current study explores adults’ sensitivity to varying distributions of finiteness in the complements of a novel attitude verb, aiming to better understand the mechanism for hypothesizing verb meaning based on syntactic distribution. We find that adults’ hypotheses for class of attitude verb are tied to the syntactic distribution—they strongly connect finiteness to belief verbs and non-finiteness to desire verbs.

Lexical factors in non-finite complementation of continue

The study examines the usage of two non-finite complements of the verb continue: the -ing form and the to-infinitive, arguing for the importance of low level generalizations in accounting for the complement choice. The semantic import of complement constructions may vary with specific lexeme classes of both the matrix verb and the complement verb, as well as be conditioned by more general features associated with the verbs’ lexical aspect. The determinants of complement choice are characterized in terms of the aspectual construal of the complement event imposed by the two alternative constructions: conceptual proximity and distance associated respectively with the -ing form and the to-infinitive. The study relies on distinctive collexeme analysis: a statistical technique which compares the lexemes distinctive for the two constructions in order to describe the semantics of the construction by examining its most characteristic collocates.

On Evidentiality and Perception Ambivalent adjectives in the Spanish non-finite complements of ver

In this paper, I will pay attention to the behavior of adjectives such as altísimo and torpe, called ambivalent (Luján 1981) or underspecified (Fernández Leborans 1995), due to the fact that they can be combined with both the copulative verb ser and the copulative verb estar in languages such as Spanish. More specifically, I am interested in two structures, both of them dependent on the Spanish verb of perception ver. In the first, altísimo and torpe combine with the copula estar in infinitive clauses. In the second, subordinate infinitive clauses are headed by the copula ser. I will try to elucidate which is the contribution of the copulative verbs to the interpretation of these structures. With Escandell-Vidal (2018), I assume that the adjectives altísimo and torpe in combination with estar give rise to an evidential effect: the spatio-temporal situation to which the property they denote is anchored is conceived as a situation of visual experience. In the first of the structures I am interested in, the source of information is likewise encoded in the verb of perception. Therefore, the research question that will guide this study is whether the evidential content is actually being expressed twice.

Mismatches at the syntax-semantics interface: The case of non-finite complementation in American Norwegian

AbstractNon-finite complementation strategies found in American Norwegian (AmNo) (made available by the Corpus of American Nordic Speech (CANS)) reveal unique and diverging patterns when compared to both standard and dialectal Norwegian and English. We argue in this paper that the majority of these divergent structures are the result of overextension (Rinke & Flores, 2014; Rinke et al., 2018; Putnam & Hoffman, 2021; Kupisch, 2014), where heritage language speakers produce structures that differ from both grammars in an attempt to generate forms that are distinct from the more dominant language. Our treatment of these nuanced structures in AmNo shows that this heritage grammar significantly restricts bare (ornaked) TPs (Situations) serving as non-finite complements. To avoid bare TP-complements, AmNo has developed two distinct, yet related strategies, (1) reducing non-finite complements tovPs (Events), or (2) incorporating an additional element, a preposition, to ensure that the non-finite complement functions as the object of a preposition. We analyze this latter strategy as an instance of the emergence of structural salience (Polinsky, 2018) in the syntax of AmNo and suggest that this variation is best understood as a syntax–semantics interface phenomenon.

Local syntactic violations evoke fast mismatch-related neural activity detected by optical neuroimaging.

It remains to be investigated whether syntax-related mismatch activity would be evoked in event-related optical signals by syntactic violations that deviate from our language knowledge and expectations. In the current study, we have employed fast optical neuroimaging with a frequency-domain oximeter to examine whether syntactic violations of English bare infinitives in the non-finite complement clause would trigger syntax-related mismatch effects. Recorded sentences of bare or full infinitive structures (without or with the 'to' infinitival marker) with syntactically correct or incorrect versions and non-syntactic lexical items (verbs) were presented to native speakers of English (n = 8) during silent movie viewing as a passive oddball task. The analysis of source strength (i.e., minimum norm current amplitudes) revealed that the syntactic category violations of bare object infinitives led to significantly more robust optical mismatch effects than the other syntactic violation and non-structural, lexical elements. This mismatch response had a peak latency of 186ms in the left anterior superior temporal gyrus. In combination with our prior MEG report (Kubota et al. in Neurosci Lett 662:195-204, 2018), the present optical neuroimaging findings show that syntactic marking (unmarked-to-marked) violations of the bare object infinitive against the rule of the mental grammar enhance the signal strength exactly in the same manner seen with MEG scanning, including the peak latency of mismatch activity and the activated area of the brain.

영어 동사 Begin, Start, Continue, Cease의 비정형 보충절 사용에 관한 연구

영어 동사 Begin, Start, Continue, Cease의 비정형 보충절 사용에 관한 연구

Finite complements trigger reality responses in attitude verb acquisition… but so do non-finite complements

The syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis was developed to explain how children learn verbs whose meanings are opaque, e.g. attitude verbs, which refer to the mental state of the subject of the sentence. Belief verbs (like think) take finite complements, while desire verbs (like want) take non-finite complements. Children differentiate these subclasses by three: they are lured by reality when there is a mismatch between the subject’s belief and reality when interpreting think, but not with want. Previous work also shows that when interpreting a less common attitude verb, hope, children are influenced by syntactic frame, supporting view that syntax guides children’s acquisition of attitude verbs. The current study investigates when syntax becomes useful to the learner. Children are presented with sentences including a novel verb with either a finite or a non-finite complement. Children are not influenced by syntax when interpreting a novel attitude verb, suggesting that syntactic complements only become useful for hypothesizing meaning once the learner has some experience with a specific attitude verb.

Alçamento temporal em complementos infinitivos do português


 
 
 Este artigo discute aspectos da interação entre tempo e modalidade relacionados à interpretação de orações com verbos modais no português. Defende-se que o complemento de todos os verbos modais pode hospedar um operador de futuro que se manifesta na morfologia do próprio verbo. Propõe-se também que o complemento dos modais epistêmicos hospeda uma projeção de tempo cujo núcleo é alçado para a oração principal, novamente se manifestando morfossintaticamente como desinência do verbo. Por fim, contrasta-se o comportamento dos complementos infinitivos dos verbos modais epistêmicos com o de verbos de atitude proposicional, notando que, para esses últimos, não há a possibilidade de um tempo referencial livre e nem a de alçamento para a oração principal, resultando em um perfil morfossemântico mais transparente.
 
 

Comparing explanatory principles of complement selection statistically: a case study based on Canadian English

ABSTRACTSeveral factors have been identified in the recent literature to explain variation in the selection of sentential complements in recent English, and the article begins with a survey of such factors. The article then offers a case study of the impact of such factors on non-finite complements of the adjective afraid on the basis of the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English. Attention is paid for instance to the Extraction and Choice Principles, passive lower predicates, and text type. Multivariate analysis is applied to compare and to shed light on such different explanatory principles. The Choice Principle proves to be by far the most significant predictor of the alternation, while the heavily correlated syntactic feature of Voice appears non-significant. Fiction, as opposed to the informative registers, shows a notable preference for to infinitives, though this finding needs to be replicated in datasets where controlling for author idiolect is possible. Theoretically plausible odds ratios are observed on the Extraction Principle and negation of the predicate, but they are not statistically significant. In the former case, this may well be due to the variable’s collinearity with the Choice Principle and its low overall frequency, resulting in a low effective sample size.

THE SCOPE OF FACTIVITY IN TURKISH NON-FINITE COMPLEMENT CLAUSES

<p class="ql-align-justify">The present study deals with the pressupositional value of Turkish complement clauses, specifically those which are determinative on a factivity-based selection of non-finite complementation. The term complementation here refers to the grammatical state in which a proposition functions as an argument of a matrix predicate. Concerning factivity, I am in accordance with Erguvanlı-Taylan, who adopted the lexical semantic interpretation of Kiparsky &amp; Kiparsky. Accordingly, a predicate is factive if it presupposes the truth of the proposition expressed in its complement clause. The majority of previous studies generally focused on -DIG, -(y)AcAG and -mAk/-mA complement clauses, and these gave little attention to -(y)Iş complement clauses outside of a few studies. Concerning the factive semantic of-(y)Iş complement clauses, I follow Erdal, who pointed out to the factive semantic of -(y)Iş complement clauses first with their textual task as topic. This paper deals furthermore with factive predicates which embed -(y)Iş complement clauses.&nbsp;The manner of an action is a further specific semantic of -(y)Iş, which is dealt with here as a trigger of the presuppositional value. The present study shows that the scope of the factivity includes all non-finite complement clauses, which presuppose the truth of their propositions.

The Great Complement Shift and the role of understood subjects: The case of fearful

Abstract This article reports on a corpus-based study of diachronic change and constructional competition in the system of English complementation, with a focus on variation in non-finite complements of the adjective fearful. Fearful occurs with prepositional (of -ing) subject-controlled gerunds and with to-infinitives, which can further be distinguished into subject extraposition, subject control, and tough-constructions. Recent decades show a drastic decline of the to-infinitival patterns, concomitant to the loss of one of the senses of fearful. We examine the diachronic distribution and competition of the two construction pairs that show functional overlap, i.e. tough-constructions and extraposition constructions on the one hand, and infinitival and gerundial subject-control patterns on the other. This allows us to show the import of the ‘Great Complement Shift’ in the face of constructional attrition and to investigate new principles motivating the choice for either the to-infinitival or the gerundial subject-control construction. More specifically, the study provides further evidence for the ‘Choice Principle’, which involves the (lack of) agentivity of the understood subject in the event described by the lower clause. In this way, the study adds new explanatory factors and descriptive insights to our knowledge of the broader diachronic change known as the Great Complement Shift.

Quando 'falar' vira ordem: a construção FALAR PARA V. infinitivo em Português, uma explicação cognitiva

Neste artigo, focalizamos a construção FALAR PARA V.infinitivo no Português do Brasil (PB), na oralidade e na escrita, em contextos em que emerge sentido manipulativo. O compartilhamento de domínios semântico-gramaticais entre os verbos pedir e falar, tais como a conceptualização de “atividade comunicativa com o uso da palavra” e a possibilidade de complementação com que V. finito e com para V.infinitivo, direcionou-nos para a investigação sobre as similaridades e diferenças que as construções com esses verbosapresentam.Com tal propósito, estabelecemos contraste com o Português Europeu (PE),na mesma sincronia, considerando o pressuposto cognitivista de que diversificações semânticas são resultantes de diferenças de conceptualização. Buscamos, assim, identificar as operações cognitivas envolvidas nos processos de conceptualização que permeiam as escolhas dos falantes, tanto no sentido para a estabilidade quanto para a mudança semântica. As concepções de perspectivação e de subjetificação, tomadas dos estudos desenvolvidos por Traugott (1989), Traugott e Dasher (2002) e Langacker (2008), nortearam a análise dos dados, que aponta a construção FALAR PARA V.infinitivo como um exemplo de processo de mudança semântica no Português do Brasil (PB), na oralidade e na escrita.

Secondary predication and the distribution of raising to object

In Den Dikken (2017b) arguments are presented for a predicational approach to hyperraising and copy raising constructions in which the ‘raised’ DP serves as the subject of the matrix clause. In this sequel, I show that hyperraising and copy raising also occur in secondary predication constructions embedded under propositional attitude verbs such as consider. An examination of the properties of these hyperraising and copy raising to object constructions leads to the conclusion that overt subject-toobject raising (‘object shift’) definitely exists in English but is obligatory only for subjects of small-clause complements of verbs. Apart from yielding a clearer perspective on the distribution of overt object shift in English, the study also delivers a unified account of a variety of restrictions on the subject of the non-finite complement of propositional attitude verbs.

비정형 보충절에 나타난 중간태 동사의 통사적 특성

비정형 보충절에 나타난 중간태 동사의 통사적 특성

The Production of Complement Clauses in Children With Language Impairment.

The purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive description of complement-clause production in children with language impairment. Complement clauses were examined with respect to types of complement structure produced, verb use, and both semantic and syntactic accuracy. A group of 17 children with language impairment (mean age = 6;10 [years; months]) was compared with a group of 17 younger children with typical language development (mean age = 4;6). Examples of both nonfinite complements with different subjects and sentential complements involving a range of complement-taking verbs were collected using specially designed elicitation tasks. The children with language impairment were able to construct both types of complement clauses, had access to a range of verbs that are utilized within these constructions, and had knowledge of the grammatical constraints imposed by these verbs. However, they were more restricted in their production of sentential complements and produced significantly fewer semantically accurate complements (both finite and nonfinite) than the children with typical language development. Children with language impairment evidenced deviant rather than merely delayed development in the area of complement-clause production. Complex sentences such as complement clauses need to be targeted in language intervention programs.

Non-finite complements and modality in de-na ‘allow’ in Hindi-Urdu

The meaning ‘to allow’ is expressed in Hindi-Urdu by the verb de-na ‘give’ with an oblique infinitive complement, which I argue is syntactically as well as semantically ambiguous. It has a biclausal control analysis, meaning ‘allow X to do A’, as well as an Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) complement with the meaning ‘allow A to happen’. The complements are smaller than finite CP and larger than the non-clausal causative complement, and the ECM complement is smaller than the control complement. I offer syntactic arguments for the syntactic ambiguity associated with the two meanings; where the control reading is unavailable, the ECM structure and meaning are available, sometimes by coercion from the context. The modal meaning associated with the control structure suggests that modals do not occur only in ECM/Raising constructions. The arguments are couched in minimalist syntactic terms, opening up a cross-theoretical dialogue with Butt’s (1995) analysis in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) terms of the permissive as a complex predicate in argument structure.

Separating tense and finiteness: anchoring in Dravidian

Finiteness cannot be identified with Tense. What is currently understood as Tense must be seen as a complex of features with two functions: event anchoring or finiteness, and temporality and tense interpretation; these features need not always occur together on one element. Finite negative clauses in Dravidian languages are matrix non-finite complements to a negative element. The non-finite clause can have a tense interpretation, but the constructs ‘selected tense’ or ‘dependent tense’ (Landau 2004) appear to be irrelevant to it. Finite negative clauses seem rather to separate tense interpretation and clausal anchoring. Dravidian anchors the clause to the world of the utterance by virtue of Mood: the anchors are a finite neg element, agreement, and modals. Neg and agreement select different verbal complements, in accordance with their polarity; consequently, affirmative and negative clauses look superficially very different.

Selection of Subjunctors in Turkic Non-Finite Complement Clauses

The topic of the paper is Turkic clausal complementation: the syntactic and semantic behavior of complement clauses, the subjunctors that mark them, and the roles of various predicate types in selecting them. Two main types of bound complementizers serve as subjunctors in complement clauses: a participial and an infinitival type, both usually corresponding to the English complimentizer that. Traditionally, the semantic behavior of the complement clauses has been thought to depend on a distinction between factive and non-factive verbs. Complement clauses provided with participial subjunctors have been described as factive in contrast to non-factive complement clauses provided with infinitival subjunctors. Csato (2010) shows that the distinction fact vs. non-fact does not explain the distribution in Turkish. She concludes that the distinction made in Functional Grammar between embedded propositions and embedded predications can be applied to account for the differences between Turkish clauses with participial and infinitival subjunctors. Only clauses with a participial subjunctor can have illocutionary force and a truth value. It is suggested in the present paper that this situation follows from a specific distribution of oppositional values. Clauses carrying participial subjunctors do not refer directly to events as such, but explicitly to some knowledge about events. The concept ‘knowledge of a possible fact’ is grammaticalized in most Turkic languages. Clauses provided with participial sub_____________  Prof. Dr., Johannes Gutenberg University, Department of Turkology Mainz / Germany johanson@uni-mainz.de • Johanson, Selection of Subjunctors in Turkic Non-Finite Complement Clauses •

Two Sources of Subjectivity: Qualitative Assessment and Dimensional Uncertainty

This paper examines the use of scalar adjectives in two contexts that have played a role in discussions of the subjective/objective distinction: ‘faultless disagreement’ discourses and the nonfinite complement position of the subjective attitude verb find. I argue that the pattern of distribution and interpretation of scalar adjectives in these contexts provides evidence for two sources for subjectivity, which are distinguished from each other in that one affects the grammatical properties of a predicate and one does not. The first kind, which licenses appearance in the complement position of find, is based in the lexical semantics of predicates that encode qualitative assessments. The second kind, which gives rise to faultless disagreement effects, arises from uncertainty about the dimensions of evaluation that are involved in fixing the extension of a predicate in a context of utterance.