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In:Changing Structures: Studies in constructions and complementation
Edited by Mark Kaunisto, Mikko Höglund and Paul Rickman
[Studies in Language Companion Series 195] 2018
► pp. 197–213

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The development of infinitival complementation with or without language contact

 | University of Tampere
Published online: 22 May 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.195.11slo
Certain contact languages previously lacking a finiteness contrast have developed infinitival complementation. The late Old English and Sri Lankan Malay (SLM) constructions both involve to-infinitives seemingly based on prepositional phrases, specifically infinitival to + lexical verb in Old English and infinitival nang + lexical verb in SLM. There is no evidence, however, that these verbs were ever nominalized in SLM, and Los (2005) has argued that the apparently dativized forms we find in Old English belie the fact that their syntactic status was verbal and the constituents containing them clausal. The SLM infinitival prefix is etymologically irrealis, paralleling the subjunctives that the English to-infinitive progressively replaced. Identifying cross-linguistically parallel changes that are explainable based on textual attestations in one of the languages examined will aid in reconstructing the development of underattested languages that lack diachronic corpora.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Cross-linguistic variation in interclausal symmetry
  • 3.The historical English analogy with Sri Lankan Malay
  • 4.The view that restoration of infinitival marking is improbable
  • 5.The development of infinitival complementation in Sri Lankan Malay
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (15)
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Slomanson, Peter
2021. Cross-linguistic parallels and contrasts in a contact language perfect construction. In The Perfect Volume [Studies in Language Companion Series, 217], ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo

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