To‐Infinitive and Gerund‐Participle Clauses with the Verbs Dread and Fear

Abstract

This paper investigates the variation between to‐infinitive and gerund‐participle complements with the verbs dread and fear. Specifically, it aims to explain the reasons underlying complement selection with these two verbs as well as a number of semantic effects which arise with these complement clause constructions. The approach taken here argues that an explanation of these constructions must be predicated upon an analysis of the semantic content of the items of which each one is composed. Three factors are proposed as being relevant to explaining the issues: (1) the meaning and function of the gerund‐participle, (2) the meaning and function of the to‐infinitive, and (3) the meaning of the main predicate. The findings of this study are in line with those of previous studies which have applied the same approach. This paper is intended as a small contribution to ongoing efforts to crack the complementation issue in English.

Analyzing the Gerundial Patterns of prevent: New Corpus Evidence from Recent English

“…(2013-07-22 US) On the analogy of the sentences in (15a–b), a pseudocleft variant of sentence (14), abridged in non-essential ways, also seems possible, as in (16). What we are determined to prevent is such weapons reaching our streets. On the reasonable assumption that substrings in the focus position of a pseudocleft sentence are constituents (see Higgins 1973: 12; Duffley 2000: 227, 2006: 36–37; Duffley and Fisher 2021: 85), the well-formedness of sentence (16) suggests that the NP of the bare NP - ing complement, even when not a special NP ( such weapons in the case of (14)), can indeed be a constituent of the lower clause.…”

A principle of economy in derivation in L2 grammar: Do everything in narrow syntax

“…Thus far we have assumed no semantic difference between infinitives and gerunds as complements of verbs. However, a difference in meaning does exist between the two forms (see, for example, Duffley, 2006), and the acquisition of the semantic properties of these two constructions may trigger the differentiation of the two forms. This is an empirical question and left open to further research.…”

A Corpus‐driven Study of the Correlation Between the Syntactic Combination Strength and the Semantic Contribution in the English “V‐to‐v” Construction

“…Additionally, not all transitive verbs (e.g., see, require and suppose) can introduce to-infinitive direct objects. According to Duffley & Joubert (1999), Duffley (2000Duffley ( , 2004Duffley ( , 2006, Duffley & Arseneau (2012), and Duffley & Fisher (2021), the infinitive to functions the same as the preposition to, denoting the direction or goal of the first verb. Mair (2002Mair ( , 2009 conducts corpus-based diachronic and synchronic research of the grammatical changes in the "V-to-V" construction, demonstrating that the "help to-infinitive" construction is grammaticalized and hence should be considered as one verb phrase rather than two, help being a semiauxiliary.…”