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5.2.2. Te-infinitivals

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This section discusses the use of te-infinitivals as arguments of main verbs. Such clauses are formally characterized by the fact that they are headed by a te-infinitive but cannot be introduced by the complementizer om we find in om + te-infinitivals; this contrast is illustrated in (435). The fact that the complementizer om is normally optional in examples such as (435a) raises the question as to whether the forms without om could or should be considered te-infinitivals but we postpone discussion of this to Section 5.2.2.3; this section will only discuss verbs that do not allow their infinitival complement to be introduced by om.

435

a.	Mariei	weigerde	[(om) PROi	dat boek	te lezen].	om + te-infinitival
	Marie	refused	comp	that book	to read
	'Marie refused to read that book.'

b.	Mariei	beweerde	[(*om) PROi	dat boek	te lezen].	te-infinitival
	Marie	claimed	comp	that book	to read
	'Marie claimed to be reading that book.'

An important distinction in the domain of argumental te-infinitivals is between control and subject raising constructions. Consider the primeless examples in (436) with the verbs beweren'to claim' and blijken'to turn out'. These verbs differ in that the former is dyadic, as is clear from the fact that it takes a nominal subject and a sentential object, whereas the latter is monadic, as is clear from the fact that it only takes a sentential subject (which is introduced here by the anticipatory pronoun het'it'); the difference in adicity of the two verbs comes out even more clearly in the primed examples, in which the finite clauses are pronominalized by dat'that'.

436

a.	De man	beweerde	gisteren	[dat	hij	een tovenaar	is].
	the man	claimed	yesterday	that	he	a magician	is
	'The man claimed yesterday that heʼs a magician.'

a'.		De man	beweerde	dat	gisteren.
		the man	claimed	that	yesterday

b.	Het	bleek	al	snel	[dat	de man	een tovenaar	is].
	it	turned.out	prt.	soon	that	the man	a magician	is
	'It soon turned out that the man is a magician.'

b'.		Dat bleek	al	snel.
		that turned.out	prt.	soon

Transposing these findings to the infinitival constructions in (437), we can conclude that the two occurrences of the nominative noun phrase de man'the man' differ in that the one in (437a) simply corresponds to subject of the main clause in (436a), whereas the one in (437b) corresponds to the subject of the embedded clause in (436b). This is indicated in the structures below as follows: in (437a), de man is simply base-generated as the external argument of the matrix verb beweren and the infinitival clause contains a phonetically empty PRO-subject corresponding to the subject pronoun hij of the embedded finite clause in (436a); in (437b), on the other hand, de man is base-generated as an argument of the embedded infinitival clause and subsequently raised to the subject position of the matrix clause; it follows that the infinitival clause does not contain a PRO-subject but a trace of the moved noun phrase. Control and subject raising constructions will be discussed separately in, respectively, Section 5.2.2.1 and Section 5.2.2.2.

437

a.	De mani	beweert [PROi	een tovenaar	te zijn].	control
	the man	claims	a magician	to be
	'The man claims to be a magician.'

b.	De mani	schijnt [ti een tovenaar te zijn].	subject raising
	the man	seems a magician to be
	'The man seems to be a magician.'

Section 5.2.2.2 will also include a discussion of subject raising constructions that we will refer to as passive "subject raising" constructions as such constructions are normally passive counterparts of subject control constructions (with the exception of a couple of more idiomatic examples). The active counterpart of the passive construction in (438b) is the somewhat formal construction in (438a); the corresponding construction with an overt noun phrase in the position of the trace ti in (438c) is unacceptable.

438

a.	Jani	veronderstelt [PROi	de beste leerling van de klas	te zijn].
	Jan	assumes	the best pupil of the class	to be
	'Jan assumes that he (= Jan) is the best pupil of the class.'

b.	Jani	wordt	verondersteld [ti	de beste leerling van de klas	te zijn].
	Jan	is	assumed	the best pupil of the class	to be
	'Jan is assumed to be the best pupil of the class.'

c.	*	Marie veronderstelt	[Jan de beste leerling van de klas	te zijn].
		Marie assumes	Jan the best pupil of the class	to be

The reader will look in vain for so-called "long passive" constructions of the kind we find in German examples such as (439b), in which passivization of the matrix verb results in promotion of the object of the embedded verb. Dutch does not allow this type of passive constructions, as is shown by (439b'). For an extensive discussion of long passivization in German, we refer to Wurmbrand (2001) and references cited there.

439

a.	dass	der Johannnom	den Traktoracc	zu reparieren	versuchte.	German/active
	that	the Johann	the tractor	to repair	tried
	'that Johann tried to repair the tractor.'

a'.	dat	Jan/hij	de tractor/hem	probeerde	te repareren.	Dutch/active
	that	Jan/he	the tractor/him	tried	to repair
	'that Jan/he tried to repair the tractor/it.'

b.		dass	der Traktornom	zu reparieren	versucht	wurde.	German/passive
		that	the tractor	to repair	tried	was

b'.	*	dat	de tractor/hij	geprobeerd	werd	te repareren.	Dutch/passive
		the	the tractor/he	tried	was	to repair

References:

Wurmbrand, Susanne2001Infinitives. Restructuring and clause structureBerlin/New YorkMouton de Gruyter

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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Argument ClauseClauseControlInfinitival Argument ClausePassiveRaising

Version: 1.0, January 2016

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver	January 2016

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