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5.3 The auxiliary of continuation and its selection restrictions
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The auxiliary of continuation blieuwe ‘stay, continue’ can select a gerundial infinitive or a to-infinitive.

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The auxiliary of continuation only combines with gerundial infinitives if these infinitives are verbs of body posture: sitte ‘to sit’, stounde ‘to stand’, läze ‘to lie’ and hongje ‘to hang’. Some examples are given below:

1
Die hele Äkker is läzen blieuwen.
the whole field is lie remained
The whole field has remained unploughed.
2
Hie sluuch dän Skooier deel, sodät hie läzen bleeuw.
he knocked the tramp down so.that he lie remained
He knocked the tramp down, who remained lying on the ground.
3
Uzen is je stounden blieuwen.
ours is yes stand remain
Ours (house) remained standing.
4
Hie is mäd dät Wucht behongjen blieuwen.
he is with that girl hang remain
He remained stuck with the girl.

Some examples have a strong idiomatic flavour, which is an indication that the auxiliary of continuation selects the head of its complement. We didn’t find any examples of the verb of continuation selecting a to-infinitive.

If the verb of continuation is to combine with another verb than a verb of body posture, then the PP infinitive (the adpositional neuter infinitive) is used. Two example are given below (from Laker & Kramer 2022):

5
Hie moaste an ’t wonderjen blieuwe.
he must at.the wandering remain
He had to continue wandering.
6
Do Seelter bleeuwen uut Gewoanheid noch an ’t Eedgreeuwen.
the Seelter remained out habit still at.the peat.digging
The Seelter continued digging peat out of habit.

The PP infinitive can thus be seen to combine not only with the verb of being, but with various auxiliaries. In all cases, the infinitive takes the form of a gerundial infinitive.

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