Phasehood of infinitives

Vol.65,No.1(2017)

Michaela Čakányová Joseph Emonds

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136660

PDF
Abstract
This paper focuses on the status of infinitivals with regard to their potential phasehood. First, our notion of phasehood derives from but also departs from Chomsky's (2000) analysis of finite VPs, as it is adjusted for infinitivals. This adjustment strengthens the original theory because it successfully incorporates an account of several properties of different types of English infinitives. Secondly, a major part of our approach is based on the premise that an infinitive’s status as a phase depends on how that clause is lexically selected. If the selected head is an open class lexical item, the infinitive will be a phase, whereas an infinitive that is selected otherwise will not be a phase. Thirdly, the infinitival marker 'to' functions in our theory as the head of the infinitival, which means that every to-infinitive is at least a vP. We thus follow and develop Wurmbrand's (2001) idea that infinitives are basically vPs. Finally, we divide infinitivals according to their sizes (CP, IP, vP, VP) and subjects (obligatory control, raising, exceptional case marking) and argue that some of them qualify as phases while others do not.

Keywords:
case assignment; infinitive; non-finite clause; phase; subject raising; small vP

Pages:
97–114
References

Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: the framework. In: Roger, Martin – Michaels, David – Uriagereka, Juan, eds. Step by step. Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 89–155.

Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by Phase. In: Kenstowicz, Michael, ed. Ken Hale: A Life in Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–52.

Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On Phases. In: Freidin, Robert – Otero, Carlos P., eds. Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory. Essays in Honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 133–166.

Denison, David. 1993. English Historical Syntax: Verbal Constructions. London: Longmans.

Emonds, Joseph. 1976. A Transformational Approach to English Syntax. New York/Orlando: Academic Press.

Emonds, Joseph. 2000. Lexicon and Grammar: The English Syntacticon. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1973. On the Nature of Island Constraints. Ph.D. thesis. MIT.

Huddleston, Rodney – Pullum, Geoffrey. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, George – Ross, John. 1966. A Criterion for Verb Phrase Constituency. Report National Science Foundation 17. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Computation Laboratory.

Legate, Julie Anne. 2003. Some Interface Properties of the Phase. Linguistic Inquiry 34(3), pp. 506–515. | DOI 10.1162/ling.2003.34.3.506

Lobeck, A. C. 1995. Ellipsis: Functional heads, licensing, and identification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rosenbaum, Peter. 1967. The Grammar of English Predicate Complement Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wurmbrand, Susi. 2001. Infinitives: Restructuring and clause structure. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wurmbrand, Susi. 2014. Tense and Aspect in English Infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry 45(3), pp. 403–447. | DOI 10.1162/LING_a_00161

Metrics

6

Views

0

PDF views

PDF