This section discusses the use of te-infinitival clauses as arguments of main verbs. Such clauses are formally characterized by the fact that they are headed by a te-infinitive. They differ from om + te-infinitivals in that they cannot be introduced by the complementizer om; this contrast is illustrated in (444). The fact that the complementizer om is usually optional in om + te-infinitivals such as (444a) raises the question as to whether the forms without om could or should be considered te-infinitivals; we will address this question at various points in our discussion.

An important distinction in the area of te-infinitival argument clauses is that between control and subject-raising constructions. Consider the primeless examples in (445) with the verbs bewerento claim and blijkento turn out. These verbs differ in that the former is dyadic, as is clear from the fact that it takes a nominal subject and a sentential object, while the latter is monadic, as is clear from the fact that it takes only a sentential subject (introduced here by the anticipatory pronoun hetit); the difference in adicity of the two verbs comes out even more clearly in the primed examples, where the finite clauses are pronominalized by datthat.

Applying these findings to the infinitival constructions in (446), we can conclude that the two occurrences of the nominative noun phrase de manthe man differ in that the one in (446a) simply corresponds to the subject of the main clause in (445a), while the one in (446b) corresponds to the subject of the embedded clause in (445b). This is indicated in the structures in (446). In (446a) de man is simply base-generated as the external argument of the matrix verb beweren, and the infinitival clause contains a phonetically empty PRO-subject corresponding to the subject pronoun hij of the embedded finite clause in (445a). In (446b), on the other hand, de man is base-generated as an argument of the embedded infinitival clause and subsequently raised to the subject position of the matrix clause; it follows that the infinitival clause does not contain a PRO-subject but a trace of the moved noun phrase. Control and subject-raising constructions are discussed separately in Sections 5.2.2.1 and 5.2.2.2, respectively.

Section 5.2.2.2 will also include a discussion of subject-raising constructions, which will be called passive subject-raising constructions, because such constructions are normally (with the exception of a few more idiomatic examples) passive counterparts of subject-control constructions. This means that the active counterpart of the passive construction in (447b) is the somewhat formal construction in (447a); the corresponding construction in (447b') with an overt noun phrase in the position of the trace ti is unacceptable.

The reader will look in vain for so-called “long” passive constructions of the kind found in German examples such as (448b), where the passivization of the matrix verb results in the promotion of the object of the embedded verb. Dutch does not allow this kind of passive constructions, as shown by (448b'). For a detailed discussion of long passivization in German, see Wurmbrand (2001) and the references cited there.