Non-finite Verb Research Articles

The Syntax and Semantics of Nonfinite Forms

The syntactic and semantic properties of nonfinite verb categories can best be understood in relation to and distinction from the corresponding properties of finite verb categories. In order to explore these issues, it is necessary to provide a crosslinguistically valid characterization of finiteness. Finiteness is a prototypical notion, understood in relation to a language-specific finite verb prototype; nonfiniteness is therefore understood in terms of degrees of deviation from this prototype. The syntactic properties of nonfinite verb categories, so defined, can be considered from two perspectives: the functions of nonfinite clauses within superordinate clauses (e.g., argument and adjunct functions) and the internal structure of nonfinite verb phrases. Typical of the second aspect is that nonfinite phrases tend to be defective in one or another respect, relative to finite phrases, which may be understood in terms of lacking functional projections or features which are an obligatory part of finite phrases. This defectiveness relative to the finite prototype plays out also in the semantics; typically, certain aspects of the meaning of nonfinite phrases are not independently specified, but must be derived from semantic properties of a superordinate finite clause.

БЕЗОСОБОВІ ФОРМИ ІСПАНСЬКОГО ДІЄСЛОВА В КОНТЕКСТІ МІЖКАТЕГОРІАЛЬНОГО ПІДХОДУ

The problematics of parts of speech links is connected the most notably with the interaction of grammar categories both in the morphology and the syntax with reference to a part of speech, at which point such interaction does not exist in isolation of all utterance. Grammatical categories of the verb are constituents of the syntactical structure of the utterance which forms its semantic content, that is the category feature of the predicative relation. Verb lexical item is not used only for predicativity: verb lexical items have predicative force as non-predicative forms. The Spanish verb paradigm includes general category features for finite and non-finite forms of the verb and the interaction of grammar categories of finite and non-finite forms. They identify the grammatical entity of the Spanish non-finite verb forms. The conceptual foundation of the interaction of grammar categories of the Spanish verb identifies the integrated nature of functions of Spanish non-finite forms: they have characteristic constants and grammatical category features. Infinitive – verb characteristics: temporality (relative temporal meaning), person, voice, transitivity / intransitivity, prepositional rules; noun characteristics: substativisation, participial or adjectival attribute, syntactic function of subject, part of compound nominal predicate, direct /indirect object, it has a logic subject in absolute constructions. Participle – verb characteristics: temporary in the structure of compound verb forms (anteriority of actions), voice (passive), constituent of verb constructions (compound predicate), prepositional rules, it has a logic subject in absolute constructions; adjective characteristics: syntactic function of attribute, noun adjective agreement, part of compound nominal predicate, it has a logic subject absolute constructions. Gerund – verb characteristics: temporary (relative temporal meaning), part of compound predicate, transitivity / intransitivity, it has a logic subject in absolute constructions; adverbial characteristics: syntactic functions of adverbial modifiers; noun characteristics: syntactic function of attribute.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DIFFERENCES IN THE USE OF ENGLISH AND SERBIAN NONFINITE RELATIVE CLAUSES

The paper describes and analyses two language systems, English and Serbian, particularly one segment of the grammar of both languages – nonfinite relative clauses. The methods used are contrastive analysis, description and classification.Both English and Serbian nonfinite relative clauses function as postnominal modifiers. They are contrasted with the purpose of determining their similarities and differences. English nonfinite relative clauses are constructed using all nonfiniteverb forms (infinitive, -ing and -ed verb forms) in active and passive voices and progressive, perfect and simple aspects, whereas Serbian nonfinite relative clauses are constructed using radni glagolski pridev (active participle) and trpni glagolski pridev (passive participle). These two Serbian nonfinite verb forms are limited in their use in nonfinite relative clauses depending on various grammatical aspects. The differences between the uses of English and Serbian nonfinite relative clauses are identified concerning the frequency of use and variety of meanings.

Towards an explanation of the syntax of West Germanic particle verbs: A cognitive-pragmatic view

AbstractWhile the unusual behaviour of particle verbs in West Germanic has been the subject of much debate, it still awaits a substantive explanation. These verbs undergo reversal and/or intercalation subject to such syntactic constraints as finiteness and clause type. Situated within Prototype Theory, this study defines the relevant grammatical categories in terms of varying degrees of syntacticity (i.e., sentence-likeness vs. word-likeness) of which cohesiveness is a major indicator. The higher the cohesiveness of a given category, the more resistant it is to syntactic processes. The following scale of increasing cohesiveness is proposed: main clauses, finite verbs, subordinate clauses, non-finite verbs, nouns. Thus, reversal and intercalation are found in the leftward, though not in the rightward categories. This scale is pragmatically motivated. Generally speaking, main clauses are communicatively more important than subordinate clauses. Therefore, the former require a wider choice of expressive means such as reversal and intercalation than the latter. The availability of syntactic options is argued to be an iconic reflection of communicative needs.

A linguistic analysis of Cypriot Greek-English compound verbs

Attested in many language contact situations and characterized as a potential “universal of codeswitching” (Edwards and Gardner-Chloros, 2007:74), bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) remain perplexing constructions for many scholars. Drawing from a dataset of 338 instances, and from a language pair that has never been studied in-depth before, this paper examines Cypriot Greek - English compound verbs. Cypriot Greek is a non-standardized Greek linguistic variety, and the native language of Greek Cypriots living on Cyprus and overseas. These bilingual verbs are comprised of the verb kamno (‘do’), or less occasionally ʝinome (‘become’), and more often than not an English non-finite verb form. This study examines this construction so as to uncover its characteristics and the role that each part in the construction plays; the study shows what kind of formations made with kamno or ʝinome + an English language element have been found in the data, and whether they are all instances of bilingual compound verbs. It also aims to explain how their formation is possible since neither Greek nor English has this construction in monolingual discourse (Gardner-Chloros, 1995), and why BCVs arose in the first place given that Greek has another way to use verbs from other languages. Employing the work of Muysken (2000) and Backus (1996), this study shows that there are four different types of constructions in the data involving the verb kamno or ʝinome and an English element but asserts that only those with the two parts of the construction forming a single predicate should be regarded as BCVs. It is argued that even though the Greek language does not have a construction with kamno or ʝinome and a Greek non-finite verb, the occurrence of BCVs is possible because of a Greek native construction which involves kamno + a Greek derived noun. The study then claims that speakers seem to find English non-finite verbs to be congruent (Sebba, 1998) with the Greek derived noun and use them in its place in the bilingual constructions.

Progressive forms and meanings: the curious case of Capeverdean

The progressive may be described as a periphrastic construction (auxiliary + non-finite verb; for instance, in English: be + V-ing) which denotes an ongoing situation at a given time, be it an instant or an interval. This general picture, however, has faced two descriptive challenges: (i) those same forms may also appear associated with other temporal readings; (ii) the progressive meaning may also be obtained through other grammatical forms. The current paper approaches these apparent mismatches from the perspective of two varieties of Capeverdean, whose arrangements between forms and meanings of the progressive may provide a crucial insight to this cross-linguistic puzzle. The description and discussion of novel data support the two steps in a brand-new proposal for this Portuguese-based Creole: (a) the superficially different morphemes that mark the progressive have a unique diachronic path, involving the preverbal marker ta and a complete progressive cycle; (b) if we frame the temporal meaning of the progressive somewhat differently, considering the existence, under specific pragmatic conditions, of a precursory stage, at least one of the mentioned mismatches will be resolved. An additional contribution of the current discussion concerns the expression of time reference in natural language, namely that past, present or future meanings do not necessarily depend on dedicated tense morphemes

FORMS AND MEANINGS OF ADJUNCTS IN JAMES’ FIFTY SHADES OF FREED

This study is specifically aimed at identifying the forms of adjuncts and the meanings they carry. In order to analyze the data, descriptive-qualitative approach was applied in this research. The data are sentences which contain adverbials functioning as adjuncts and they were taken from a novel entitled Fifty Shades of Freed, written by Erika Leonard Mitchell, also known as E.L. James (2012). They were collected through library research and then presented informally by providing some examples and elaborations. There are some important points that can be concluded based on the results of analysis. First, adjuncts may appear in many forms, either phrases or clauses. Phrases forming adjuncts found in this novel are noun phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases. Meanwhile, clauses forming adjuncts which appear in this novel are finite verb clauses, non-finite verb clauses (including to-infinitive, bare infinitive, -ing participles, and -ed participles), and verbless clauses. Secondly, there are various meanings carried by adjuncts found in Fifty Shades of Freed. Adjuncts which denote space or place carry the meanings of position, direction, and distance. Adjuncts referring to time carry the meanings of time position, duration, frequency, and time relationship. Adjuncts showing process carry the meanings of manner, means, instrument, and agentive. Besides, there are also adjuncts which imply respect, cause, purpose, and concession found in this novel.

Small corpora and low-frequency phenomena: try and beyond contemporary, standard English

Small corpora remain an important resource for addressing questions requiring specialized data not found in large general purpose corpora. But do these small corpora have sufficient data to analyze low-frequency phenomena? This article presents a case study of the try-and-V pseudocoordination construction in English, which has an unusual morphosyntactic restriction: neither verb can be inflected. Diachronic corpora elucidate its origin as reanalysis from ambiguous usage of non-finite verbs in the late 1500s. Dialectal corpora reveal variation in frequency but not grammatical properties. And child language corpora reveal productive usage even by young children. These results are considered successful and the outlook is optimistic for addressing low-frequency phenomena beyond contemporary, standard English, especially as more, and more diverse, corpora become available.

The grammaticalization of -kotok- into a negative marker in Manda (Bantu N.11)

AbstractIt is common both crosslinguistically and specifically in Bantu languages for the prohibitive to be formed by a construction consisting of a cessative verb in collocation with a non-finite verb. This is also the case in Manda, an understudied Southern Tanzanian Bantu language. In Manda, a negative imperative is expressed by the auxiliary -kotok-, with the (lexical) meaning ‘leave (off), stop’, operating on an infinitive full verb. Intriguingly, there is variation in this construction, as -kotok- may be both formally reduced and may be used more broadly to denote non-factivity in other “non-main” (or non-standard) contexts. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that this functional and formal variation reflects a historical and ongoing process of grammaticalization along the verb-to-affix cline. Drawing on field data, the available historical data and (micro-)comparative data, this study argues that -kotok- is transforming into a more general non-main negation marker. These changes corroborate Güldemann’s hypothesis (Güldemann, Tom. 1999. The genesis of verbal negation in Bantu and its dependency on functional features of clause types. In Jean-Marie Hombert & Larry Hyman (eds.), Bantu historical linguistics, 545–587. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications) that the salient category of non-standard secondary negative markers in Bantu is derived from constructions with an auxiliary and a non-finite verb.

From Pre-Grammaticality to Proficiency in L1: Acquiring and Developing Infinitival Usage in Hebrew

Abstract The study traces the developmental route in acquisition and use of infinitives (e.g., lišon ‘to sleep’, le-exol ‘to-eat’, la-asot ’to-do’) in Hebrew as a first language, proceeding from the initial, “pre-grammatical“ emergence of linguistic forms among toddlers to structure-based knowledge and proficient use of the same devices in adolescence. Analysis involves a varied data-base of L1 oral Hebrew usage in: parent-child interactions of children aged 1;6 to 3;0 years; elicited storybook-based narratives of preschoolers; and personal-experience narratives and expository talks of schoolchildren, adolescents, and adults. Findings show that infinitives constitute an interesting test-case for examining the route from initial emergence via acquisition to maturely proficient command of a given subsystem in L1. Infinitival structures in Modern Hebrew, a language with an impoverished system of nonfinite verbs and lacking in auxiliaries of the kind common in Standard Average European, reveal a long developmental path, showing increasing complexity at all levels of language use: morphological form, types of syntactic constructions, semantic content, and discursive function, the latter primarily for the purpose of achieving textual connectivity.

Language Change Mirroring Social Change: Constructions with saama ’get’ and Non-Finite Verb Forms in Different Periods and Registers of Written ­Estonian

Language Change Mirroring Social Change: Constructions with saama ’get’ and Non-Finite Verb Forms in Different Periods and Registers of Written ­Estonian

Infinitival verb phrases in english and their translations to czech – a contrastive study of non-finite verb phrases in english and czech fiction

Infinitival verb phrases in english and their translations to czech – a contrastive study of non-finite verb phrases in english and czech fiction

Te-raising is clitic climbing

Abstract In contrast to finite verb clusters, non-finite verb clusters have thus far received little attention in the literature. In this paper, I present new data from a large-scale questionnaire study on variation in non-finite three-verb clusters in Dutch, investigating the position and presence of the infinitival marker te ‘to’. The results reveal that a group of Dutch speakers allows te to occur in a higher position than it should based on selection requirements. I propose that for these speakers te has the morphosyntactic status of a clitic, whereas for all other speakers te is a verbal prefix. I analyse Dutch verb clusters as cases of functional restructuring and te-raising as an instance of clitic climbing, a well-known phenomenon from other languages with restructuring, such as Italian.

Developing Cooperative Learning Based E-Module to Teach Basic English Grammar of the First Semester of English Study Program Students at FKIP – UIR

Achieving learning outcome requires a set of the material that can be understood easily by the students. The material should be appropriate in the learning process. It should give the opportunity for the students to learn both in the classroom and out of the classroom. The students can learn independently by using the appropriate material. However, the material of Basic English Grammar is still quite enough to give a chance for the students to practice and learn cooperatively. This research is aimed obtain e-module of Basic English Grammar, so that it can be used as a source of learning for first semester students of English Study Program of FKIP-UIR. The research method used in this study is R & D (Research and development) of Borg and Gall. The participant of this research is 30 students from first semester who learn Basic English Grammar. In this research, the researcher tried to find out students’ need because it is the first step to do in this research design. So, the data was obtained by writing test.The findings suggest that the participants made 386 errors in writing their paragraph. There are 45 errors (11.66%) of the agreement of singular and plural, 106 errors (27.46%) of the using of verb tense, 51 errors (13.21%) of the finite verb, 25 errors (2.48%) of the non-finite verb, 28 errors (7.25%) of the pronoun, 20 errors (5.18%) in using the preposition, 9 errors (2.33%) of the context of usage, 55 errors (14.25%) of the context of meaning, 22 errors (5.70%) of the word choice and 25 errors (6.48%) of word order. To sum up, the most frequent grammatical errors made by the students are errors in writing verb tense. Based on this finding, the researcher will design e-module of Basic English Grammar.

Structure, use, and syntactic ecology in language obsolescence

AbstractNancy Dorian's foundational work on the loss of Gaelic in the East Sutherland communities continues to provide important insights into the nature of the process of language change in situations of obsolescence. In this article I look at a subset of Dorian's data from the perspective of current syntactic theory, and argue that the connected loss of such apparently different constructions as objects of non-finite verbs, inalienable possessive structures, and a range of passives, and the concomitant restructuring of the grammar, all follow from the interaction between a reduction in agreement features on a functional head and the broad syntactic ecology of the language. This approach makes sense of why these apparently disparate constructions all undergo the particular kinds of change that are seen, changes which are mysterious from the perspective that an obsolescing language should alter to become more like the dominant language (in this case English) which is replacing it.

How strong is the ban on non-finite verbs in V2? Evidence from early second language learners of German with and without SLI

Abstract Using the standardized test LiSe-DaZ across four test rounds, we collected elicited production data from 22 typically developing early second language learners (eL2 TD) of German (mean age at T1: 3;7) and 11 older eL2 children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (mean age at T1: 7;1). Focusing on the relation between verb placement and verbal inflectional morphology two questions were addressed: Do eL2 children obey the ban on non-finite verbs in verb-second position (V2) in German, and do eL2 SLI children differ from their eL2 TD peers in their morpho-syntactic behavior? This is the first study on this issue to systematically differentiate between V2 and verb-final position (Vf) and between bare verb forms and infinitives, based on a large sample of elicited production data. Results show that from the first test round onwards verbal inflectional morphology and verb placement were strongly related in the TD and the SLI group. Bare verb forms occurred in V2 only and are argued to be finite; en-infinitives were restricted to Vf. We conclude that a) the restrictions for morphological markings are inextricably tied to specific syntactic positions, b) that this knowledge is still accessible when L2 acquisition starts around age 3, and c) that the ban on non-finite verbs in V2 is invulnerable in eL2 TD and in SLI, indicating that SLI is matter of severe delay.

The development of finiteness in the Transeurasian languages

Abstract Nonfinite verb forms can gradually acquire morphological and syntactic properties of finiteness. Across the languages of the world, such developments can follow various pathways with various results. In this article, I first discuss the four major pathways mechanisms for developing finite function on formerly nonfinite forms. Next, I argue that the Transeurasian languages (i. e., Japanese, Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages) share a common mechanism. Historical reconstruction indicates that these languages all show the tendency to reanalyze directly a nonfinite verb form as a finite one, without the omission of a specific matrix verb. I refer to this tendency as “indirect insubordination”. I argue that the recurrence of indirect insubordination on formally related suffixes can be taken as an indication of common ancestorship.

Passive potential affixation: syntax or lexicon?

In this paper we will argue that contrary to the received view passive potential affixation in Hungarian primarily derives complex syntactic objects rather than adjectives. By means of a number of tests we show the differences between the two classes of items bearing the homophonous affix -ható/hető : one a nonfinite verb form, the other a lexicalized adjective. In addition to a syntactic analysis of this composite affix, a typology is provided for languages that have similar constructions.

The Acquisition of the Third Person Singular [-s]: A Case Study of Language-minority Children Attending an Irish Primary School

This study investigates the development of the third-person singular (3SG)[-s] morpheme in the spontaneous speech of five language minority children attending an Irish primary school, where the language of instruction is the second language (L2) of the subjects. Evidence from the study is discussed in the context of a number of theories which have been put forward in the literature to account for the development of the 3SG. Results support some of the predictions of the Optional Infinitive Theory, and would argue in favour of the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. The parallel use of both finite and non-finite verbs in obligatory finite contexts is explored, and while the sporadic omission of the 3SG morpheme is similar to the sporadic omission of the genitive [-s] morpheme, the use of objective case marking ceasing in verbal projections yet continuing in nominal projections, questions the extent to which a parallel occurs between possessive and 3SG inflections.

‘Hreran mid hondum hrimcealde sæ’: On verb attraction in Old English

This paper deals with a phenomenon in Old English syntax labelled ‘verb attraction’. In an Old English clause with two verbs, such as an auxiliary verb and the following non-finite verb, or an obje ...