Non-finite Complementation: A Usage-based Study of Infinitive and -ing Clauses in EnglishThis book presents a comprehensive guide to the way speakers of British English use infinitive and -"-ing" clauses as verbal complements. It contains details of the non-finite complementation patterns of over 300 matrix verbs, with a particular emphasis on verbs that occur with more than one type of non-finite complement. Drawing upon data from the British National Corpus, the author shows that some of the views which are to be found in the existing literature on these sorts of clauses are in conflict with the evidence of actual usage. He also shows that there is actually much more regularity in this area than has often been taken to be the case. Moreover, this regularity is shown to be motivated by cognitive-functional factors. An appendix contains details of the relative frequency of all of the constructions dealt with in the study, together with an example of each of them. The book is of interest to language teachers as well as linguists, both theoretical and applied. Thomas Egan is a senior lecturer in English language at Hedmark University College. |
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
Chapter 3 Earlier Studies | 45 |
Chapter 4 Complement Types and Complementisers | 89 |
Sametime constructions | 145 |
Forwardlooking constructions | 199 |
Backwardlooking constructions | 281 |
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Non-finite Complementation: A usage-based study of infinitive and -ing ... Thomas Egan Limited preview - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
activity actually adverbial allow animacy Applied Attitude construction Aspect constructions BNC Same-subject Different-subject BNC to inf British English Causation constructions cease characterisation cognitive linguistics complement constructions complement form complement predicate complement situation construal construction types constructions containing constructions encode contexts corpus difference Different-subject bare inf Different-subject to inf discussion domain downloaded tokens Duffley durative Enablement construction encode situations English English Studies examples exemplified fact Figure form of complement Forward-looking Applied Attitude Forward-looking Communication construction Forward-looking constructions gerund hate help S2 imply infinitive complements infinitive constructions infinitive form instance Judgement constructions Langacker linguistic look matrix verb subject meaning Mental Process constructions mid-interval perspective non-finite complement non-imposition occurs in Forward-looking overlap profiled projected future projected totals prototypical question realisation refer resemble Rudanko S2 bare infinitive S2 to infinitive Same-subject bare inf Same-subject to inf Same-time constructions schematic semantic sense speaker Table targeted alternative usage-based model validity predications Verspoor
Popular passages
Page 1 - Substantial importance is given to the actual use of the linguistic system and a speaker's knowledge of this use; the grammar is held responsible for a speaker's knowledge of the full range of linguistic conventions, regardless of whether these conventions can be subsumed under more general statements.