Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

224 Thomas Egan
with to-infinitive constructions with modalised matrix verbs and constructions
with gerunds. 2 Section 3 contains an overview of the distribution of all three constructions
over the last three hundred years and Section 4 details of the use of the
construction with a non-modalised matrix verb and a to-infinitive complement
to encode specific and general predications in the last two hundred years. Finally,
Section 5 contains a summary and conclusion.
2. The non-finite complements of emotion verbs in Present-day English
All four verbs discussed in this paper occur in three non-finite construction types,
each of which typically (or prototypically) locates the complement predication in
a different ontological domain. 3 In the first place, they all occur with a modalised
matrix verb and a to-infinitive complement. In this construction the complement
is normally situated in the projected future, i.e., posterior to the time of the matrix
verb. ( )–(4), all taken from the BNC, illustrate this construction type with the
four matrix verbs.
( ) Ultimately, she would like to work in film, behind the camera.
(BNC CGB 786)
(2) Paula says that she would love to have children but hasn’t yet found the right
man to have children with. (BNC K3P 69)
(3) I wouldn’t mind losing my stuff but I’d hate to lose my films.
(4) ‘I’d prefer to fly there, and rent a villa,’ she said.
(BNC APC 748)
(BNC CKB 429)
In ( ) the realisation of the wishes of the subject would lead to her working in the
film industry. If this occurs, and, of course, nothing is certain where the future
is concerned, it will be after the time of the utterance. As the Cambridge Grammar
puts it, the ‘would like to-infinitive’ construction “projects into the future
and resembles a verb of wanting” (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 242). Similarly
the ‘would love to-infinitive’ construction also projects into the future and also it,
too, resembles a verb of wanting. In this case the degree of the wanting is merely
2. The vast majority of the modals in question in Late Modern and Present-day English are
would, should or ’d. Note that in this paper I use an expression like ‘would like to’ as shorthand
for ‘modal verb + like to’.
. They also occur in a non-finite construction with an object predicative in the form of a past
participle, as in ‘I like my humour served up intelligently and well presented’ (BNC BNS 458).
This construction is not considered in this paper.