• Dutch
  • Frisian
  • Saterfrisian
  • Afrikaans
Show all
4.4.Three main types of infinitival argument clauses
quickinfo

Sections 4.2 and 4.3 have shown that we need to distinguish between verbs taking finite and verbs taking infinitival complement clauses, and that these types of complements raise a number of issues of a more semantic or pragmatic nature. Furthermore, this section will show that infinitival complement clauses do not form a single syntactic category, but can be divided into at least the three formally different categories shown in (30): om + te-infinitivals, te-infinitivals, and bare infinitivals.

30
a. Jan beloofde [om PRO het boek naar Els te sturen].
om + te-infinitival
  Jan promised comp the book to Els to send
  'Jan promised to send the book to Els.'
b. Jan beweerde [PRO het boek naar Els te sturen].
te-infinitival
  Jan claimed the book to Els to send
  'Jan claimed to send the book to Els.'
c. Jan wilde [PRO het boek naar Els sturen].
bare infinitival
  Jan wanted the book to Els send
  'Jan wanted to send the book to Els.'

The following sections will briefly introduce the three subtypes in (30). For the sake of presentation we will start with om + te-infinitivals and bare infinitivals, because we will see that te-infinitivals again fall into several subgroups, some of which behave more like om + te-infinitivals and some of which behave more like bare infinitivals.

readmore
References:
    report errorprintcite