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Complementation with Verbs of Choice in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Patrick Duffley  and
Rafika Abida
Patrick Duffley
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Rafika Abida
Affiliation:
Université Laval
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Abstract

This study addresses both the practical question of what forms of complementation are found with verbs expressing the notion of choice in English and the theoretical question of explaining the control and temporal effects found with these verbs. The explanation proposed is based on an approach in which syntax is taken to be driven by semantics. Semantics is defined in terms of the meaning-content associated with the linguistic forms occurring in the constructions examined, namely the to-infinitive, the gerund-participle, and the lexical content of the different verbs of choice themselves, together with the semantic value of the complement’s function with respect to the main verb. Although it does not utilize a corpus in the strict sense of the word, nor employ statistical argumentation, the study is based mainly on an examination of attested usage in Canadian English as reflected by Canadian websites accessed in the fall of 2006.

Résumé

Résumé

Il est traité dans la présente étude à la fois de la question pratique de recenser les formes de compléments possibles avec les verbes exprimant l’idée de choix en anglais et de l’explication théorique des effets de sens impliquant les phénomènes de contrôle et de temporalité avec ces verbes. L’explication est fondée sur le postulat que la syntaxe est conditionnée par la sémantique, cette dernière étant définie par les signifiés des formes linguistiques effectivement employées dans les séquences en question, c’est-à-dire l’infinitif, le participe-gérondif et les lexèmes des verbes de choix, ainsi que la valeur sémantique de la fonction que remplit le complément par rapport au verbe de la principale. Bien que l’étude ne soit pas fondée sur un corpus au sens strict, ni sur des statistiques, elle emploie comme données des occurrences attestées trouvées sur des sites web canadiens à l’automne 2006.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2009 

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