Infinitival Complements

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Chapter 12

• Infinitival Complements

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Introduction

• Infinitival complements produce "complex
  meanings", i.e. sentences in which one situation
  functions as a semantic argument of another.
• There are basically two ways in which
  propositions can be combined into complex
  meanings, for which the following examples are
  representative
• a. Pat continues to avoid conflict.
• b. Pat tries to avoid conflict.

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The infinitival To

• functions as an auxiliary (AUX ) verb
• has a nonfinite form
• ?we introduce a new binary feature INF
• The lexical entry for infinitival to will be INF
  , whereas all other verbs are INF -.
• is specified as FORM base

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• to does not contribute to the semantics of a
  sentence.
• This becomes obvious from cases where it is
  optional
• (1) a. Pat helped Chris to solve the problem.
• b. Pat helped Chris solve the problem.
• (2) a. They wouldn't dare to attack us.
• b. They wouldn't dare attack us.

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• Because of this "semantic emptiness", the lexical
  entry of to has
• RESTR lt gt and shares the INDEX value of its VP
  complement.
• Thus, when to combines with its VP complement,
  only the complement contributes to the semantic
  restriction of the resulting VP.
• To is a kind of verb lexeme, thus it inherits all
  constraints of
• verb-lxm that are not overridden.

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The Verb Continue

• (3) a. Pat continues to avoid conflict.
• b. There continued to be no easy answer to the
  dilemma.
• c. It continues to bother me that Chris
  lied.
• d. (Unfair) advantage continues to be taken
  of the refugees.
• Continue places no restriction of its own on its
  subject, but takes as a subject whatever kind of
  subject its VP complement is looking for.
• If the subject of the VP has to be referential,
  like for avoid conflict, then the subject of
  continues to avoid conflict has to be referential
  as well.
• If a VP like be no easy answer to the dilemma
  requires a dummy there as its subject, then
  continues to be no easy answer to the dilemma
  must take there as a subject as well.

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• Thus, it can be specified that continue and its
  complement must have the same subject.
• Therefore, the first element in continue's ARG-ST
  is tagged as identical to the SPR value of the
  second element in the ARG-ST list.

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• Continue does not assign any semantic role to its
  subject. This becomes obvious from a comparison
  of active-passive pairs
• (4) a. The FBI continued to visit Lee.
• b. Lee continued to be visited by the FBI.
• The only semantic argument that continue takes is
  the situation of its infinitival complement,
• and the predication that continue makes about
  this argument is that this situation continues to
  be the case.
• Thus, both sentences in (4) mean that it
  continues to be the case that the FBI visits Lee

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• Since continue does not assign a semantic role to
  its subject, it can also accept nonreferentials
  like dummy it and there or idiom chunks as its
  subject, although they have 'none' as their INDEX
  value.
• With these properties, continue is a
  representative of a new class of verbs, for which
  we introduce the lexical type subject-raising-verb
  -lexeme (srv-lxm) as an immediate subtype of
  verb-lxm

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The semantic values assigned to (4)a. and (4)b.
differ only in the order of the elements on the
RESTR list. Since this order has no semantic
significance, they are predicted to be
semantically equal
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The Verb Try

• a. Pat continues to avoid conflict.
• b. Pat tries to avoid conflict.
• Though these sentences at first glance look quite
  similar to each other, a further analysis of the
  verb try will show that its properties differ
  distinctively from those we have identified for
  continue.

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• (5) a. Pat tries to avoid conflict.
• b. There tried to be no easy answer to
  the dilemma.
• c. It tries to bother me that Chris lied.
• d. (Unfair) advantage tries to be taken
  of the refugees.
• With try sentences that have a nonreferential
  subject are ill formed, even if the verb embedded
  in try's complement does indeed select for a
  nonreferential subject.

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• Furthermore, the active-passive sentences which
  were paraphrases with continue are not synonymous
  with the verb try
• (6) a. The FBI tried to find Lee.
• b. Lee tried to be found by the FBI.
• This is because unlike continue predications,
  which take only one semantic role (ARG),
• predications of trying involve two things
• - an individual who is trying sth (TRIER) and
• - some situation or state of affairs which the
  trier wants to bring
• about.
• With try, the active-passive sentences differ in
  meaning because the two triers are not the same.

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• Verbs like try, which assign a semantic role to
  their subject, are called control verbs.
• For them, too, we introduce a new subtype of
  verb-lxm which we call subject-control-verb-lexeme
  (scv-lxm)

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Lexical entry for Try
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Comparison active and passive
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Comparison active and passive
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Summary Subject Raising and Subject Control

• subject raising verbs like continue
• - express properties of situations
• - allow nonreferential subjects
• - give rise to paraphrastic active-passive pairs
• subject control verbs like try
• - express a relation between an individual and a
  situation
• - never take nonreferential subjects
• - fail to produce analogous paraphrastic
  active-passive pairs

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Raising and Control Adjectives

• In fact, not only verbs can be divided into these
  two classes, but there are also raising
  adjectives and control adjectives.
• (7) a. Pat is likely to scream.
• b. Pat is eager to scream.
• (8) a. There is likely to be a letter in the
  mailbox.
• b. It is likely to upset Pat that Chris
  left.
• c. There is eager to be a letter in the
  mailbox.
• d. It is eager to upset Pat that Chris
  left.
• (9) a. The doctor is likely to examine Pat.
  Pat is likely to be examined by the doctor.
• b. The doctor is eager to examine Pat. ?
  Pat is eager to be examined by the doctor.
• This suggests that we should introduce a more
  abstract type like subject-raising-lexeme as a
  supertype of srv-lxm and a similar adjectival
  lexeme.

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Object Raising and Object Control

• Two other verbs which take infinitival
  complements are expect and persuade.
• They make up phrases like the following, in which
  the NP is the direct object of the verb and the
  infinitival VP is also a complement of the verb
• (10) a. I expected Leslie to be aggressive.
• b. I persuaded Leslie to be aggressive.

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• The difference between expect and persuade in
  complex
• sentences is analogous to the distinction between
  continue
• and try
• Just as the subject of continue plays no semantic
  role in the continue predication, the object of
  expect plays no role in the expect predication.
• The object of persuade is like the subject of try
  in that it plays a semantic role with respect to
  the persuade predication, while at the same time
  playing the semantic role assigned to the subject
  of the complement's verb.

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• Expect is an example of an
• object raising verb

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Lexical Entry for Expect
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• Persuade is an example of an
• object control verb

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Lexical entry for Persuade
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Summary

• There is a fundamental difference between two
  kinds of verbs
• a) Raising verbs select one ARG-ST member
  assigned no semantic role
• b) Control verbs, which are quite similar, but
  assign a semantic role to each member of their
  ARG-ST list