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

2 2 Thomas Egan
1,20
1,00
0,80
0,60
0,40
0,20
0,00
1710–1780 1780–1850 1911–1922 BNC WI
hate to
d hate to
hate-ing
Figure 4. Tokens per 00,000 words of three constructions containing the matrix verb hate in
four corpora.
1,80
1,60
1,40
1,20
1,00
0,80
0,60
0,40
0,20
0,00
1710–1780 1780–1850 1911–1922 BNC WI
prefer to
d prefer to
prefer-ing
Figure 5. Tokens per 00,000 words of three constructions containing the matrix verb prefer
in four corpora.
decrease in the tendency of two of the four non-modalised to-infinitive constructions
to encode specific predications in the same periods.
4. General and specific predication with a non-modalised matrix verb
Figure 6 contains details (from 780 to the present) of the percentages of nonmodalised
to-infinitive constructions containing the four matrix verbs and
constructions which (as we have seen in Section 2) typically encode general predications.
The period from 7 0– 780 is omitted from consideration in this section
as there is so little data for two of the verbs, like and prefer, from this period. In the