Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T12:37:12.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Patrick Duffley  and
Maryse Arseneau
Patrick Duffley
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Maryse Arseneau
Affiliation:
Collège François-Xavier-Garneau
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Résumé

Résumé

Cette étude porte sur les interprétations temporelles et de contrôle avec des verbes exprimant la notion de risque suivis par des compléments infinitifs ou gérondifs en anglais. Deux questions y sont abordées : Pourquoi le gérondif montre-il une variation dans la relation temporelle entre l’événement qu’il dénote et celui du verbe de la principale, tandis que l’infinitif manifeste une relation temporelle constante? Pourquoi la construction gérondive est-elle caractérisée par une variation de contrôle alors que l’infinitif produit des lectures constantes de contrôle par le sujet? Un corpus de 1345 exemples attestés est examiné. L’explication est formulée en termes d’une sémantique de langage naturel fondée sur les signifiés linguistiques du gérondif, de l’infinitif, de la préposition to et le rapport sémantique entre le verbe de la principale et son complément. Il est démontré que les interprétations temporelles et de contrôle sont des implications fondées sur le contenu sémantique de ce qui est exprimé linguistiquement. On soutient que la capacité d’une sémantique de langage naturel de rendre compte des données élimine le besoin d’avoir recours à des opérations purement syntaxiques pour expliquer le phénomène du contrôle.

Keywords

controltenseinfinitivegerundcomplementationcontrôletempsinfinitifgérondifcomplémentation
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 31 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boeckx, Cedric and Hornstein, Norbert. 2003. Reply to ‘Control is not movement’. Linguistic Inquiry 34:269–280.Google Scholar
Boeckx, Cedric and Hornstein, Norbert. 2004. Movement under control. Linguistic Inquiry 35:431–452.Google Scholar
Boeckx, Cedric and Hornstein, Norbert. 2006. Control in Icelandic and theories of control. Linguistic Inquiry 37:591–606.Google Scholar
Boeckx, Cedric and Hornstein, Norbert. 2008. On (non-)obligatory control. In New horizons in the analysis of control and raising, ed. Davies, William D. and Dubinsky, Stanley, 251–262. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Boeckx, Cedric, Hornstein, Norbert, and Nunes, Jairo. 2010. Control as movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1968. Entailment and the meaning of structures. Glossa 2:119–127.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro and McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1990. Meaning and grammar: An introduction to semantics, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter and Jackendoff, Ray. 2001. Control is not movement. Linguistic Inquiry 32:492–512.Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter and Jackendoff, Ray. 2005. Simpler syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, R.M.W. 1984. The semantic basis of syntactic properties. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 583–595. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Duffley, Patrick J. 1992. The English infinitive. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Duffley, Patrick J. 1994. Need and dare: The black sheep of the modal family. Lingua 94:213–243.Google Scholar
Duffley, Patrick J. 2000. Gerund versus infinitive as complements of transitive verbs in English: The problems of ‘tense’ and ‘control’. Journal of English Linguistics 28:221–248.Google Scholar
Duffley, Patrick J. 2006. The English gerund-participle: A comparison with the infinitive. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Duffley, Patrick J. and Abida, Rafika. 2009. Complementation with verbs of choice in English. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 54:1–26.Google Scholar
Egan, Thomas. 2008. Non-finite complementation: a usage-based study of infinitive and -ing clauses in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Enns, Peter J. 1999. A Guillaumian contribution to a linguistic analysis of the modal WILL in contemporary English. Doctoral dissertation, Université Laval.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles and Atkins, Beryl T.S.. 1992. Towards a frame-based lexicon: The semantics of risk and its neighbors. In Frames, fields and contrasts: New essays in semantic and lexical organization, ed. Lehrer, Adrienne and Kittay, Eva Feder, 75–102. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hamawand, Zeki. 2002. Atemporal complement clauses in English: A cognitive grammar analysis. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30:69–96.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney and Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2002. Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. 1970. On coreferential complement subject deletion. Linguistic Inquiry 1:439–500.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey, and Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Salkie, Raphael. 2010. Will: Tense or modal or both? English Language and Linguistics 14:187–215.Google Scholar
Tyler, Andrea and Evans, Vyvyan. 2003. The semantics of English prepositions: Spatial scenes, embodied meaning and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stowell, Tim. 1982. The tense of infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry 13:561–570.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1988. The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar