This section briefly discusses the linker element om, which introduces om + te-infinitivals. The fact that om is optional in argument clauses has led to the claim that om is superfluous and should therefore be avoided, as was argued in the early 20th century in Den Hertog (1973b:74-5). This advice was motivated not only by the optionality of om, but also because om was analyzed as a regular preposition. Since subjects and direct objects are not normally introduced by the preposition om, it is claimed that the use of this preposition is improper with infinitival subject and object clauses. Similarly, since prepositional objects are already introduced by fixed prepositions, the use of the additional preposition om with PO-clauses is claimed to be pleonastic in nature.

The claim that the linker om is prepositional has also been defended in more recent years. For example, Bennis & Hoekstra (1985) argues for the prepositional status of om on the basis of the distribution of om + te infinitivals. The starting point is the observation already discussed in Section 5.2.1.1 that such infinitivals have the same distribution as finite clauses in their use as arguments of verbs, nouns, or adjectives. However, there is a striking difference in the distribution of finite clauses and infinitival clauses preceded by om; whereas the former can be used as the complement of a preposition, the latter cannot. This is clear from the fact that examples such as (375b) are only acceptable when om is omitted.

Bennis & Hoekstra relates the ungrammaticality of example (375b) with om to the more general restriction that PPs cannot usually function as complements of prepositions; cf. Section P33.2, where we also discuss a small number of exceptions. If the linker element om is indeed prepositional, the contrast found in (375b) is covered by the same generalization.

A possible problem with the assumption that the linker element om is a preposition is that om makes no clearly discernible contribution to meaning; cf. Den Hertog’s claim that om is superfluous. Therefore, if om is to have a function, it must be a syntactic one; this is explicitly stated in Dik (1985c), where om is analyzed as a relator, i.e. an element marking a relation of syntactic dependency (viz. selection). This position is not necessarily incompatible with the claim that om is prepositional in nature, since prepositions are also used as relators when heading a prepositional object; like om in om + te-infinitivals, the functional preposition op in Jan jaagt op hertenJan hunts for deer is semantically void and serves primarily to indicate the thematic relation between the verb jagento hunt and the noun phrase hertendeer. However, by categorizing om as a relator, Dik analyzes it as a functional element comparable to the complementizer datthat, which also signals a relation between a matrix verb and a syntactic dependent, viz. a finite argument clause.

The claim that the linker element om functions as a complementizer-like element is compatible with Bennis & Hoekstra’s analysis, since it is not claimed that om heads an independent PP, but rather that it is located in the complementizer domain of the dependent clause. Pronominalization provides empirical evidence for the complementizer status of om; the examples in (376) show that the om + te infinitival behaves like a clause in that it must be pronominalized by hetit, and cannot be pronominalized by erom, which would be expected if om were the head of a PP.

The assumption that om functions as a complementizer is also compatible with attempts in generative grammar to provide a unified treatment of functional prepositions and complementizers. Since discussing this would lead us too far into complex theory-internal discussions, we refer the reader to Emonds (1985: §7) and Kayne (2000: Part III) and simply conclude that om is a kind of in-between category; it is a preposition with complementizer-like properties or, vice versa, a complementizer with preposition-like properties. This may be sufficient to explain the unacceptability of examples such as (375b) with om, while still avoiding the problem signaled by Den Hertog.

Note that the acceptability contrast between infinitival clauses with and without om in (375b) shows that the omission/addition of om is not always innocuous. The same thing is shown by the fact, illustrated in (377), that omitting om can make an infinitival object clause transparent to leftward movement of some of its constituent parts; while (377a) shows that the complete clause preceded by om must follow the matrix verb in clause-final position, (377b) shows that the clause without om can be split by it as a result of such movement. In the remainder of our discussion of om + te infinitivals, we will abstract from these effects, but we will return to them in Section 5.2.2, where we will discuss te-infinitivals without om.

Finally, it is important to note that while it is normally always possible to omit om from infinitival argument clauses, it is not always possible to add it to infinitival argument clauses without om. For instance, example (378) shows that the verb bewerento claim cannot take an om + te-infinitival as its complement. Such cases will also be discussed in Section 5.2.2.