Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-p5m67 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-19T01:47:13.959Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The rise of the to-infinitive as verb complement1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Bettelou Los
Bettelou Los
Affiliation:
Engelse TaalkundeVrije UniversiteitDe Boelelaan 11051081 HV AmsterdamThe Netherlandslosb@let.vu.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In Old English we find considerable variation in the infinitival complementation patterns of verbs: some verbs take a bare infinitival complement, some verbs take a to-infinitival complement and some verbs can be complemented by either infinitive. This article evaluates two previous attempts to account for the distribution of the two infinitives and offers an alternative account; it also argues that the increase in the use of the to-infinitive occurred mostly at the expense of the finite complement clause rather than at the expense of the bare infinitive, which is the traditional view.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 1 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

d'ardenne, S. T. R. O. ed. (1977). The Katherine Group, edited from ms. Bodley 34. Paris: Société d'edition ‘les Belles Lettres’.Google Scholar
Bock, H. (1931). Studien zum präpositionalen Infinitiv und Akkusativ mit dem to-Infinitiv. Anglia 55: 115–249.Google Scholar
Bosworth, J., & Toller, T. (1882). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Clarendon Press: Oxford. (1921) Supplement.Google Scholar
Brinton, L. J. (1988). The development of English aspectual systems: aspectualizers and post-verbal particles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, J., Perkins, R. and Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution of grammar: tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Callaway, M. (1913). The infinitive in Anglo-Saxon. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986). Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clark Hall, J. R. (1894[1960]). A concise Anglo-Saxon dictionary, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Denison, D. (1990). Auxiliary + Impersonal in Old English. Folia Linguistica Historica 9: 139–66.Google Scholar
Duffley, P. J. (1992). The English infinitive. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1989). The origin and spread of the accusative and infinitive construction in English. Folia Linguistica Historica 8: 143–217.Google Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1990). Syntactic change and causation: developments in infinitival constructions in English. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1995). The distinction between bare and to-infinitival complements in late Middle English. Diachronica 12: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1996a). Verbal complementation in Early Middle English: how do the infinitives fit in? In Britton, D. (ed.), English historical linguistics 1994. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 247–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1996b). The status of to in Old English to-infinitives: a reply to Kageyama. Lingua 99: 107–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, O. C. M. (1997). Infinitive marking in late Middle English: transitivity and changes in the English system of case. Forthcoming in Fisiak, (ed.), Studies in Middle English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gabelentz, H. C. de and Loebe, J. (1843). Ulfilas. Veteris et novi testamenti versionis Gothicae. Vol. II, 1: Glossarium der Gothischen Sprache. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.Google Scholar
Gabelentz, H. C. de and Loebe, J. (1846). Ulfilas. Veteris et novi testamenti versionis Gothicae. Vol. II, 2: Grammatik der Gothischen Sprache. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.Google Scholar
Givón, T. (1980). The binding hierarchy and the typology of complements. Studies in Language 4: 333–77.Google Scholar
Halbert, W. E. (1978). Gothic syntax: a relational grammar. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Healey, A. D. & Venezky, R. L. (1980[1985]). A microfiche concordance to Old English. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Google Scholar
Hecht, H. ed. (1900). Bischop Wœrferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen. Greins Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa, Leipzig: Georg H. Wigand.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. (1994). The antisymmetry of syntax, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Köhler, A. (1867). Der syntaktische Gebrauch des Infinitivs im Gotischen. Germania 12: 421–62.Google Scholar
Koopman, W. (1990). Word order in Old English. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Koster, J. (1984). On binding and control. Linguistic Inquiry 19: 335–91.Google Scholar
Kytö, M. (1993). Manual to the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: coding conventions and lists of source texts. 2nd edn.Helsinki: University of Helsinki, English Department.Google Scholar
Longacre, R. E. (1976). An anatomy of speech notions. Lisse: Peter de Ridder.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manabe, K. (1989). The syntactic development of the infinitive in Middle English. Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. (1985). Old English syntax, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, B., Ball, C. and Cameron, A. (1975, 1979). Short titles of Old English texts. Anglo-Saxon England 4: 207–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘Addenda and corrigenda’, Anglo-Saxon England 8: 331–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, B. & Robinson, F. C. (1982). A guide to Old English revised with texts and glossary. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Molencki, R. (1991). Complementation in Old English. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski.Google Scholar
Morris, R. ed. (1866[1882]). Dan Michel's Ayenbite of Inwyt or Remorse of Conscience. London: EETS.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, F. (1975). English aspectual verbs. The Hague and Paris: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noonan, M. (1985). Complementation. In Shopen, T. (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 42–140.Google Scholar
Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio (1986). Roma: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.Google Scholar
Raith, J. (1951). Untersuchungen zum englischen Aspekt, Vol. 1: Grundsätzliches Altenglisch. Munich: Huebner.Google Scholar
Riggert, G. (1909). Der syntaktische Gebrauch des Infinitivs in der altenglischen Poesie. Inauguraldissertation der Königl. Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel.Google Scholar
Rohdenburg, G. (1995). On the replacement of finite complement clauses by infinitives in English. English Studies 76: 367–88.Google Scholar
Royster, J. F. (1918). The causative use of ‘Hatan’. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 17: 82–93.Google Scholar
Rudanko, J. (1989). Complementation and case grammar: a syntactic and semantic study of selected patterns of complementation in Present-Day English. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorpe, B. ed. (1844). The homilies of the Anglo-Saxon church; the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, 2 vols. London: The Ælfric Society.Google Scholar
de Vogüé, A. ed. (1979). Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues: Texte critique et notes. Traduction par Paul Austin. Paris: Les éditions du Cerf (Sources Chrétiennes).Google Scholar
Warner, A. (1982). Complementation in Middle English and the methodology of historical syntax. London and Canberra: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Warner, A. (1993). English auxiliaries: structure and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wülfing, J. E. (1894). Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Grossen, Vol. I. Bonn: P. Hanstein.Google Scholar
Wurff, W. van der (1990). Diffusion and reanalysis in syntax. Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Yerkes, D. (1982). Syntax and style in Old English: a comparison of the two versions of Wœrferth's translation of Gregory's Dialogues. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.Google Scholar