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Inflected Infinitives Revisited: Genericity and Single Event

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Manuela Ambar
Manuela Ambar*
Affiliation:
Universidade de Lisboa
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Abstract

This article argues for a minimalist approach to the variation between Romance languages with respect to the generic interpretation associated with infinitival complements of epistemic verbs. It is proposed that epistemic verbs have inherent temporal features and that they assign a tense feature to their complement. These features are checked under a Spec-head relation through two temporal projections, related either to the object position or the subject position. The variation observed between Portuguese and French, Italian and Spanish with respect to the event interpretation of infinitives is formulated in terms of the strong/weak status of the [+specific] feature of Tense. The difference in the temporal interpretation of the inflected infinitives with respect to the presence or absence of the have + past participle sequence is derived from the hypothesis that the tense of the participle raises to the TP projection that c-commands it when it is morphologically invisible, the indicative present being visible in Portuguese, but not in the other languages.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article propose une approche minimaliste à la variation entre langues romanes en ce qui concerne l’interprétation générique associée aux compléments infinitifs des verbes épistémiques. Il y est proposé que les verbes épistémiques ont des traits temporels inhérents et qu’ils assignent un trait de temps à leur complément. Ces traits sont vérifiés sous la relation spécifieur-tête via deux projections temporelles, l’une reliée à la position objet et l’autre à la position sujet. La variation entre le portugais et le français, l’italien et l’espagnol en ce qui a trait à l’interprétation événementielle des infinitives est formulée en termes de force/faiblesse du trait [+spécifique] de la catégorie Temps. La différence d’interprétation temporelle observée dans les infinitives fléchies eu égard à la présence vs. l’absence du complexe avoir + participe passé est dérivée de l’hypothèse que le temps du participe monte à la projection TP qui le c-commande lorsqu’il n’est pas visible morphologiquement, le présent indicatif étant visible en portugais, mais pas dans les autres langues considérées.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 43 , Special Issue 01 1: Grammaire et variation , March 1998 , pp. 5 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1998

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