The post‐adjectival passive infinitive

Gaaf, W. van der

doi:10.1080/00138382808596535

Cited by 22 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…5 For diachronic accounts of verbal complementation, see Warner (1982), Rohdenburg (1995), Fanego (1996Fanego ( , 2004, Rudanko (1998), Los (2005, and De Smet (2008); for synchronic accounts, see Wierzbicka (1988), Mair (1991), Rohdenburg (1999), andNoël (2003); and for typological accounts, see Givón (1980) and Noonan (2007). 6 For diachronic accounts, see Van der Gaaf (1928), Van der Wurff (1990), Fischer (1991), Miller (2002; for synchronic accounts, see Lees (1960), Bolinger (1961), Mair (1987); for typological accounts, see Comrie & Matthews (1990).…”

Section: Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

linden

Davidse

2009

Flin

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This article develops a functional synchronic-diachronic description of the clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions (ECs). It does so on the basis of qualitative and quantitative corpus-based analyses of the importance adjectives important, essential, crucial and the appropriateness adjectives appropriate, proper, and fitting. All six adjectives can currently take either mandative complements expressing desired action (coded by to-infinitives or that-clauses) or propositional complements describing arguable claims (typically coded by that-clauses). In reference grammars these have tended to receive incomplete coverage without elucidation of the constructional polysemies involved. We argue that a better understanding of the present system can be arrived at by investigating the diachronic developments by which it was fashioned. The ECs with these adjectives started off as mandative constructions and this continues to be their current unmarked use. They also developed patterns with propositional complements, but in this area the importance and appropriateness adjectives followed different diachronic paths, leading to distinct pragmatico-semantic readings of the pattern with single proposition in Present-day English.

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Section: Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

linden

Davidse

2009

Flin

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AGR in Old English to-infinitives

Kageyama¹

1992

Lingua

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Active and passive tough-infinitives

Haumann

2018

Studies in Language Companion Series

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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.

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The post‐adjectival passive infinitive

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

AGR in Old English to-infinitives

Active and passive tough-infinitives

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