Infinitives And Gerunds in Recent English: Studies on Non Finite Complements With Data From Large Corpora

This book explores the grammar of to infinitives and gerundial -ing clauses, which is a central area at the interface of syntax and semantics, against the background of what has been called the Great Complement Shift.

This book showcases fresh research into the underexplored territory of complementation through a detailed analysis of gerunds and ‘to’ infinitives involving control in English. Drawing on large electronic corpora of recent English, it examines subject control in adjectival predicate constructions with ‘scared’, ‘terrified’ and ‘afraid’, moving on to a study of object control with the verbal predicate ‘warn’.