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Chapter 17 - Germanic Infinitives

from Part III - Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

By
Susi Wurmbrand  and
Christos Christopoulos
Edited by
Michael T. Putnam  and
B. Richard Page
Michael T. Putnam
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
B. Richard Page
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
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Summary

Infinitival constructions have been central in Germanic for several reasons and they have been at the core of theory-building syntactic research. This paper presents an overview of two research areas— exceptional case marking (ECM) and restructuring. While in-depth discussions of these rich topics are not possible, we aim to highlight some of the major discoveries and remaining puzzles. The first part of the chapter discusses the distinction between control and ECM and provides an overview of the distribution of ECM in six Germanic languages (English, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, and German). The second part of the paper summarizes phenomena falling under the rubric of restructuring. Although the literature on restructuring has focused predominantly on German and Dutch, phenomena showing sensitivity to restructuring have also been observed in the Mainland Scandinavian languages. Finally, in the last part we combine the observations regarding ECM and restructuring and suggest a possible connection.

Keywords

infinitivesGermanicECMrestructuringsyntactic domainsIPPinfinitive splittinglong passiveparasitic morphology
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics , pp. 389 - 412
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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