The change from infinitives to clausal constructions is a character- istic of languages of the Balkan area - Greek, Bulgarian and Macedonian, Roumanian and Aroumanian, Albanian - which distinguishes them from their Indo-Europeancognates,andfrommostotherlanguagesoftheworld. It is therefore, interesting both as an unusual linguistic development and as a probable instance of syntactic interaction between geographically con- tiguous languages. The thesis is an attempt to examine, in as much detail as the scanty historical records permit, how this change took place in Bulgarian, and to consider in the light of their evidence the relative merits of the various explanations which have been offered for the change, whether as aBulgariandevelopmentorasaBalkanphenomenon. Thus,althoughatten- tion is given mainly to Bulgarian, it is hoped that the conclusions may beinsomepartacontributiontoBalkanstudies. Itisalsohopedthat the body of factual material presented, which is drawn from published sources either not previously studied from this point of view or not studied so fully, may be of use to other investigations of the history of Bulgarian. Thefindingsareheldtoaddfreshevidencetothoseinthe most detailed work on the subject, Mirchev's monograph of 1937, some of whose conclusions are disputed in the thesis. The object of research is defined as the Bulgarian language from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries, that is, from its first written re- cords to the date when its syntax had developed to approximately its modern state. For practical reasons Bulgarian and Macedonian are not dis- tinguished in the thesis, although their separate status as modern lan- guages is recognized. [Abstract continues in thesis]

Examples of the construction are found in Old Ukrainian documents and in modern South Russian dialects, and, although these are few and their usage differs from that found in North Russian sources (where the construction is well documented), it cannot be said that the construction has always been restricted to northern and central dialects. In almost every text both nominative and accusative are used for the direct object of independent infinitives, and often the choice of case seems to be random. From the sixteenth century, however, the accusative gradually becomes more frequent until it displaces the nominative from the written language.

Spanish infinitive sentences are independent syntactic structures whose verb is an infinitive. Although they are very common in popular speech, most grammar books do not even mention them; there is no study extant which deals with them exclusively or analyzes them as sentences; and no accurate classification of them exists. Studies which include infinitive sentences are of two types: (1) those that do not consider them sentences because the notion sentence requires a verb capable of expressing person and number information; and (2) those that treat them as sentences but without analyzing them, that is, without saying what makes them sentences or what the requirements for sentencehood are. In both types, classification is arbitrary and idiosyncratic. Two current analyses of these structures, one structural and one generative, are shown to be inadequate in accounting for them. Under the structural analysis, these sentences are treated as dependent structures whose "marked" intonation permits them to function independently. As to the generative analysis, it treats them as subordinated structures whose embedding sentences--either higher performatives or reconstructed matrices based on discourse--are deleted. Both analyses are shown to be ad hoc and devoid of empirical content. A study is needed that can determine whether these structures are sentences and that can classify them rigorously and precisely. This dissertation offers a (language-particular) syntactic-composition analysis. Proposing new definitions for verb, sentence, and other related notions which are free of the problems that have beset previous studies, it shows that infinitives are capable of expressing person, number and other notions, and that infinitive sentences are sentences. It also classifies those sentences formally--by means of intonation--and presents spectrographic evidence demonstrating that they are grouped into discrete classes on the basis of purely formal features. The formal classification shows that infinitive sentences are as systematically related as are non-infinitives, thereby achieving two important generalizations: a unified treatment of all Spanish verbs and all Spanish sentences.

This dissertation seeks to ask and answer the following question. What is the semantic and/or syntactic value of the articular infinitive in New Testament Greek? It is argued that the article primarily serves as a function word when used with the infinitive. That is, when the article appears in conjunction with the infinitive, it expresses a grammatical-structural relation that may not otherwise be apparent. The article does not determine the infinitive as definite. Therefore, it is not correct to say (as many do) that the article can have the same significance with the verbal noun as it does with any other noun (e.g. anaphora, marker of definiteness, substantivizer, etc.). Nor is it correct to say that the article adds no meaning at all to the infinitive. On the contrary, the structural significance of the article is prominent when the articular infinitive appears in the New Testament. Chapter one introduces this thesis as well as setting forth the history of research and my methodology. Chapter two demonstrates that the Greek article differs from the other kinds of determiners in that it often is used without its semantic weight as a determiner. In such cases the article appears as a pure function word. Chapters three and four demonstrate how this thesis arises from an inductive study of the articular infinitive in New Testament Greek. The inductive study is broken down by the major formal characteristic that divides articular infinitives: those governed by prepositions (chapter 4) versus those that are not governed by prepositions (chapter 3). Chapter five compares and contrasts New Testament usage with analogous constructions in the LXX to see if the thesis is consistent with this body of literature. Chapter six summarizes the implications that the thesis has for New Testament Greek grammar and for exegesis in the New Testament. / This item is only available to students and faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. If you are not associated with SBTS, this dissertation may be purchased from <a href="http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb">http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb</a> or downloaded through ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database if your institution subscribes to that service.

The first aim of this work is to describe the subordinate implicit clauses in Italian and in French and to compare the structures of these clauses in both languages. The second aim is to examine the use of the subordinate clauses formed with gerund in Italian and in French in a corpus of journalistic texts. The work is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. At the beginning, the theoretical part includes an explanation of some notions and a short description of the morphology and syntax of the non-finite verb forms in Italian and in French. A larger part of the work is then dedicated to the description of the subordinate implicit clauses in Italian and in French. The practical part contains an analysis of the subordinate gerund clauses in both languages. The corpus analysis is conducted using the corpus InterCorp and its aim is to examine the frequency, the semantics and the function of gerund in Italian and in French in journalistic texts.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-07-13Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:39:52Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fonseca_amh_me_sjrp.pdf: 1042737 bytes, checksum: f9dd75259f6eb37c6e7099009f8f986f (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O presente trabalho tem como tema central a perífrase verbal ir+infinitivo. Sob o ponto de vista da Gramaticalização, tratamos da formação da perífrase e de sua multifuncionalidade no Português Brasileiro, mais especificamente na variedade falada no interior do Estado de São Paulo. As amostras de fala integram o banco de dados Iboruna. Além da função de futuridade, a perífrase expressa também funções aspectuais, modais e de marcador discursivo, multifuncionalidade decorrente de diferentes estágios de sua gramaticalização. A partir das funções identificadas, relacionamos os graus de gramaticalidade da perífrase com a escala universal de gramaticalização das categorias verbais flexionais do complexo TAM (Tempo, Aspecto, Modo/Modalidade), comprovando a hipótese de que a escala de gramaticalização de ir+infinitivo obedece à ordem “universal” dos morfemas verbais flexionais como postulado em Bybee (1985). Sob o enfoque da Sociolinguística, procedemos ao tratamento variável da expressão de futururidade codificada por [IRPRESENTE INDICATIVO + Infinitivo] vs. [Futuro do Presente], no caso de Futuro do Presente, e por [IRPRETÉRITO IMPERFEITO + Infinitivo] vs. [Futuro do Pretérito], no caso de Futuro do Pretérito. Enquanto a expressão de Futuro do Presente não constitui regra variável na comunidade de fala investigada, visto que a mudança já se instaurou em favor da variante analítica, a expressão de Futuro do Pretérito na forma analítica é condicionada pelos seguintes fatores: estatuto sintático da oração (orações subordinadas), paradigma verbal do verbo principal (verbos regulares), tipo de estado de coisas (estado), tipo de texto (narrativo) e idade do informante (faixa etária mais jovem). Ao final, consideramos que a principal contribuição do trabalho foi a de mostrar o êxito da abordagem de um mesmo fenômeno na interface... / This study focuses on the ir+infinitive verbal periphrasis. From the aspect of Grammaticalization, this study approaches the formation of the periphrasis and its multifunctionality in Brazilian Portuguese language, especially in the variety used in the interior of São Paulo State. The samples of speech integrate the Iboruna database. Besides the function of futurity, the periphrasis also expresses aspectual and modal functions, and acts as discourse marker. This multifunctionality derives from different stages of its grammaticalization. Based on the functions identified, we have related the grammaticality degrees of the periphrasis to the universal scale of grammaticalization of flexional verbal categories of the TAM complex (Time, Aspect, Mode/Modality), proving the hypothesis that the grammaticalization scale of ir+infinitive follows the “universal” order of flexional verbal morphemes, as postulated in Bybee (1985). Under the focus of Sociolinguistics, we proceed to the variable treatment of the expression of futurity encoded by [IRPRESENT INDICATIVE + Infinitive] vs. [Future of Present], in the case of the Future of Present, and by [IRIMPERFECT PRETERITE + Infinitive] vs. [Future of Preterite], in the case of the Future of Preterite. While the expression of the Future of Present does not constitute a variable rule in the speech community investigated – due to the fact that the change has already been established in favor of the analytical variant –, the expression of the Future of Preterite is conditioned by the following factors: syntactic statute of the clause (subordinate clause), verbal paradigm of the main verb (regular verbs), type of state of things (state), type of text (narrative) and age of the informer (youngest age-group). Finally, it is possible to consider that the main contribution of this study was to show the success of approaching the same phenomenon... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

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(in English): The aim of this thesis is to describe the functioning of French compound infinitive in comparison with its simple form. Using language corpora, we will cover several textual types - journalism (corpus L'Est Républicain and a part of InterCorp corpus), fiction (corpus InterCorp), but we will also utilize typologically various texts from the Internet (corpus frWac) and a corpus of film subtitles. The theoretical part will describe the infinitives forms in terms of terminology, morphology, and syntax. The empirical part will be dedicated to mapping out the contexts in which the compound infinitive occurs and also to analyzing different factors that affect its aspectual and temporal interpretation. In conclusion, there is a summary as well as possible issues for further research dealing with this topic.

This thesis investigates control infinitives and ECM-infinitives in the history of Swedish. Both constructions are non-finite, based on infinitives with or without complements, but share some properties and functions with finite subordinate clauses. Control infinitives (to-infinitives) are headed by the infinitive marker att (which in some cases may be omitted) and have invisible PRO-subjects (“controlled” by, i.e. co-referential with, the subject or object of the matrix), whereas ECM-infinitives are headed by overt subjects, distinguished by their “exceptional case marking” (ECM) from the matrix verb, and never contain the infinitive marker. According to the proposed analyses, conducted within the theoretical framework of generative grammar, control infinitives are CPs, taking the infinitive marker as a non-finite complementizer in C, but lack the TP of the I-domain, whereas ECM-infinitives have no C-layer but, nevertheless, a (sort of) TP. The historical investigation shows that control infinitives have developed more clause like properties over time. In Old Swedish (1220–1526), they only rarely contained e.g. negations or auxiliaries. It is not until the seventeenth century that these elements have come into use in the same way as in modern Swedish. This is accounted for by assuming that the control infinitive in Old Swedish was a recent innovation that did not initially make any use at all of the I-domain. The ECM-infinitives, on the other hand, are taken to have the same structure and function in Old Swedish as in Modern Swedish, as their use and properties have not changed significantly. In addition, the status of the infinitive marker has changed through the history of Swedish. Etymologically a preposition, it is here analysed as a verb phrase element in Early Old Swedish, not as a (non-finite) complementizer as in Modern Swedish. In early Modern Swedish (1526–1732), the preposition till is used in much the same function as att giving rise to two new infinitive markers: till att and till. This development of new infinitive markers is also accounted for in the thesis.

Este trabalho teve por objetivo estudar alguns aspectos da complementação de predicados factivos e assertivos em PB, no quadro da teoria da Ligação e Regência. Entre esses aspectos, destacamos o estatuto semântico da oração complemento, a ocorrência do subjuntivo e do infinitivo pessoal. Mostramos que, dependendo da classe a que pertence o predicado da oração matriz, o complemento oracional pode ser um pressuposto, uma asserção ou uma não-asserção. Assim, se o predicado da matriz for um factivo (lamentar, descobrir, etc.), a proposição complemento é um pressuposto (salvo em contextos bem específicos); se for um predicado assertivo (assegurar, acreditar, etc), o estatuto semântico do complemento será o de asserção, ou seja, uma proposição, afirmativa ou negativa, declarada verdadeira pelo locutor; e, finalmente, se o predicado for um não-assertivo (querer, possível, etc.), o estatuto semântico será o de não-asserção, entendida como um enunciado que por não ser nem asseverado, nem pressuposto ou implicado, é insuscetível de receber um valor de verdade. Além do mais, a pesquisa mostra que a possibilidade de ocorrência do subjuntivo em PB na oração complemento está associada à natureza não-assertiva deste, isto é, o subjuntivo somente é possível em complementos de predicados não-assertivos (querer, preferir, provável, etc). Quanto ao infinitivo pessoal no complemento, o estudo revela que sua ocorrência vai depender também da classe a que pertence o predicado da oração matriz e da possibilidade de o sujeito da oração infinitiva receber Caso nominativo. Assim, um predicado não-assertivo como querer, em hipótese alguma, permite que o seu complemento esteja na forma infinitiva pessoal (* Quero eles saírem /*quero eles terem saído), enquanto que um verbo como lamentar admite-a, sem nenhuma restrição (Lamento eles serem estúpidos/ Lamento eles terem partido). Finalmente,, lançando mão da teoria da cópia do movimento e adotando sugestão de um operador nulo no Spec de CP do complemento de um predicado factivo, explicamos por que argumentos D-linked podem ser extraídos de uma ilha factiva, enquanto adjuntos e argumentos não-D-linked não podem. / The objective of this work was the study of some aspects of the complementation of factive and assertive predicates in PB, in Government-Binding Theory. Within these aspects, it is enhanced the semantic status of the complement sentence, the occurrence of subjunctive and the inflected infinitive. It is shown that, depending on the grammatical class to which the matrix predicate belongs, the sentential complement may be a pressuposition, an assertion or a non-assertion. Therefore, if the matrix predicate is a factive (such as to regret, to find out etc.), the subordinate clause is a pressuposition (except in very specific contexts); if the matrix predicate is an assertive (to insure, to believe etc.), the semantic status should be an assertion, i. e., a statement that may be true or false; and, finally, if the predicate is a non-assertive (such as to wish, possible etc.), the semantic status will be a non-assertion, understood as a sentence that could not receive a true value. Beyond that, we will demonstrate that the possibility of occurrence of the subjunctive in PB, in the complement sentence, is associated to its non-assertive nature, i. e., the subjunctive is only possible in complement of non-assertive predicates. In relation to the inflected infinitive, the study shows that its occurrence will depend on the grammatical class to which the matrix predicate belongs, and on the possibility of the infinitival clause subject receiving nominative case. For example, a non-assertive predicate such as querer to want, in no case would allow its complement to be in the inflected infinitival form: *Quero eles saírem[third person plural] I want them leave,. On the other hand, a verb such as lamentar to regret may admit the inflected infinitival form, without any restriction: Eu lamento eles partirem{third person plural] I regret that they leave, Eu lamento eles terem[third person plural] partido I regret they have left. Finally, we propose a solution, in the Minimalism, in order to explain the asymmetry between adjuncts and arguments non-D-linked, on one side, and arguments D-linked, on the other, in relation to the possibility of extraction of the factive island, being this extraction possible to the latter, but not to the former.