Active and passive tough-infinitives

Abstract

This paper probes into the determinants of the long-term grammatical variation of active and passive tough-infinitives, as well as into the factors that ultimately led to the decline of passive tough-infinitives. It is argued that, throughout their coexistence, the active and the passive tough-infinitive are functionally equivalent and that the demise of the passive tough-infinitive is a concomitant of the extensive and rapid spread of the passive infinitive governed by be expressing deontic modality. It is further argued that, due to the surface similarity of the passive infinitive governed by be and the passive tough-infinitive, deontic modality percolates into the passive tough-infinitive, which expresses dispositional modality. Thus, the obsolescence of the passive tough-infinitive is driven by a clash in modality.