Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang
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2 8 Thomas Egan<br />
One may perhaps still discern a greater degree of hesitation on <strong>the</strong> part of <strong>the</strong><br />
speaker in <strong>the</strong> first person expressions in (49) and (5 ) than in (48) and (50). The<br />
modalised variant may perhaps be interpreted as exerting less pressure on <strong>the</strong> addressee<br />
to respect <strong>the</strong> wishes of <strong>the</strong> speaker. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, what was originally<br />
<strong>the</strong> more diffident form may be in <strong>the</strong> process of becoming <strong>the</strong> unmarked<br />
or default mode of expression, as is <strong>the</strong> case with ‘if you’d like to’ discussed above,<br />
in which case <strong>the</strong> connotation of diffidence is likely to be reduced in time. The<br />
example with <strong>the</strong> second person subject in (52) seems ra<strong>the</strong>r more stilted, at least<br />
to my ears, than <strong>the</strong> one with <strong>the</strong> modal in (53). (52) is <strong>the</strong> only one of eleven<br />
tokens of ‘do you prefer to’ in <strong>the</strong> BNC to encode a forward-looking ra<strong>the</strong>r than<br />
a general validity predication (<strong>the</strong>re are fifteen tokens of forward-looking ‘would<br />
you prefer to’). To sum up, prefer seems to be moving in <strong>the</strong> same direction as like<br />
and love with same-time situations being typically encoded by -ing complements,<br />
situations in <strong>the</strong> projected future being typically encoded by modalised matrix<br />
verbs followed by to-infinitive complements, and situations of general validity<br />
being encoded by non-modalised matrix verbs and to-infinitive complements.<br />
5. Conclusion<br />
In this paper we have seen that <strong>the</strong> four verbs like, love, hate and prefer typically<br />
encode general validity predications when <strong>the</strong> matrix verb is not modalised and<br />
is followed by a to-infinitive clause. The same verbs are typically used to encode<br />
situations in <strong>the</strong> projected future when <strong>the</strong> matrix verb is modalised, and sametime<br />
(ei<strong>the</strong>r one-off or recurrent) situations when <strong>the</strong> matrix verb is followed by<br />
an -ing clause. As recently as Late Modern English, however, <strong>the</strong> constructions<br />
with <strong>the</strong> non-modalised matrix verb and <strong>the</strong> to-infinitive were used to encode<br />
specific predications, both same-time and forward-looking. The former of <strong>the</strong>se<br />
two usages appears to have been lost. Instead, this sort of predication may now be<br />
encoded in -ing clauses, which, as was shown in Section 3, have been expanding<br />
steadily with <strong>the</strong>se verbs, with <strong>the</strong> exception of prefer, over <strong>the</strong> last two hundred<br />
years. The function of encoding forward-looking predications has been increasingly<br />
assumed by <strong>the</strong> construction with a modalised matrix verb and to-infinitive<br />
clause, a construction that experienced a steady expansion in <strong>the</strong> latter half of <strong>the</strong><br />
nineteenth century. Three of <strong>the</strong> verbs, like, hate and prefer, may still, never<strong>the</strong>less,<br />
encode specific forward-looking predications when non-modalised and followed<br />
by a to-infinitive. In <strong>the</strong> case of like this form of predication is limited to negatives<br />
and if-suggestions.<br />
The data investigated in this chapter indicate that <strong>the</strong>re has been a drift towards<br />
a greater degree of form-function isomorphism in this area of non-finite<br />
complementation in English than was <strong>the</strong> case as recently as 50 years ago. In fact,