Variation in Non-finite Constructions in English by Mark Kaunisto & Juhani Rudanko

Author:Mark Kaunisto & Juhani Rudanko
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030190446
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The figures in Table 4.2 show that both constructions are relatively rare, especially in British English, but they also show that both constructions do still occur and that the gerundial construction is clearly the more frequent one in both American and British English. It is hard to compare the figures in Table 4.2 to the figures for the 2000s in COHA, because the American English part of the NOW Corpus is so much larger than the segment for the 2000s in COHA, but the frequencies in Table 4.2 testify to the presence of the gerundial pattern in very recent American English. The infinitival pattern is considerably less frequent but is still found as well. In British English the gerundial pattern is much less frequent than the corresponding pattern in American English, and the infinitival pattern is approximately as rare as in American English, but both patterns still merit recognition.

What is striking about the NOW data is the large number of concealed passives, especially in the American English data. It bears reiterating that an -ing form preceded by submit to is not always a concealed passive. It is nominal when it occurs in an environment that shows it to be nominal, precluding an interpretation as a concealed passive. To illustrate, consider sentence (8), from the American English part of the NOW Corpus:(8)Comcast wants to make sure devices our customers purchase at retail will work well and are safe, and we have not asked Zoom to submit to testing that is any different than what we ask of every other cable modem manufacturer we work with. (NOW , US, 2010, Ars Technica)

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