Believe-type raising-to-object and raising-to-subject verbs in English and Dutch: A contrastive investigation in diachronic construction grammar

The so-called 'raising-to-subject' pattern that verbs of the type believe can occur in is usually treated as the passive alternative for the so-called 'raising-to-object' pattern. In addition to broadening the empirical basis for the opposite claim that the English and Dutch raising-to-subject (or 'nominative and infinitive') patterns have a special functionality which is different from that of the passive construction, this paper specifically examines the stronger proposition that this has always been the case. It empirically investigates whether this proposition holds equally well for English and Dutch through a comparison of the frequencies of believe-type raising-to-object and raising-to-subject patterns in two diachronic corpora. The methodology makes use of Distinctive Collexeme Analysis. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.postprin

Same formal pattern, different contact situation, different propagation: evidential vs. deontic NCI constructions in Dutch (contrasted with English)

The grammars of both English and Dutch include nominative and infinitive (or NCI) patterns, consisting of a passive P-C-U verb complemented by a to/te-infinitive, e.g. Eng. be said to, be thought to, be found to, and Du. geacht worden te ‘be considered/supposed to’ and verondersteld worden te ‘be supposed to’. Both languages borrowed them from Latin in the Early Modern age, as loan translations of forms like dicitur and creditur, and introduced them as evidential constructions in scholarly writing. In English the evidential NCI could spread to other genres and become a productive schematic construction because it filled a semantic niche. In Dutch it faced competition from constructions already occupying that niche and as a result the Dutch evidential NCI withered away, disappearing almost completely. Much later, in the second half of the 20th century, two substantive vestiges of the Dutch evidential NCI, geacht worden te and verondersteld worden te, took on a deontic meaning after the model of the English cognate patterns be supposed to and be expected to, which helped to ensure the viability of these Dutch patterns. The difference between the attrition of the evidential construction and the acceptance of the deontic one may not just be attributable to the fact that the deontic construction could fill a functional niche while the evidential one did not. Different as well is the nature of the contact situation that led to the introduction of both constructions into Dutch. A far greater segment of Dutch speakers now has contact with English than was the case for contact with Latin during the Renaissance and the deontic NCI is less constrained by genre in both the model and the replica language.published_or_final_versio

The nominative and infinitive in English and Dutch: an exercise in contrastive diachronic construction grammar

The nominative and infinitive (or NCI) is a syntactic pattern that has so far not been given its due in the linguistics of languages that possess structures that could go by that name. In English and Dutch these were probably introduced (or at the very least revived) into the grammar as loans from Latin. To the extent that they have received attention, the linguistics of these three languages traditionally treats them as mere passive alternates of accusative and infinitives, but in English and Dutch, and probably also in Latin, most NCI patterns can instantiate three distinct constructions: a passive NCI, a descriptive NCI and an evidential NCI. Though the latter one especially can be seen to be “more grammatical” than the passive NCI, it is not the result of a grammaticalization change that has taken place inside English or Dutch. In English the evidential NCI did become a productive schematic construction that grew to be very useful in journalistic and academic discourses. In Dutch, on the other hand, the productivity of the NCI constructions has much decreased after a brief 18th-century peak. English and Dutch do have in common, however, that a couple of substantive evidential NCI patterns grammaticalized into deontic NCI constructions, which at present is the most frequent NCI construction in Dutch

The nominative and infinitive in English and Dutch: An exercise in contrastive diachronic construction grammar

The nominative and infinitive (or NCI) is a syntactic pattern that has so far not been given its due in the linguistics of languages that possess structures that could go by that name. In English and Dutch these were probably introduced (or at the very least revived) into the grammar as loans from Latin. To the extent that they have received attention, the linguistics of these three languages traditionally treats them as mere passive alternates of accusative and infinitives, but in English and Dutch, and probably also in Latin, most NCI patterns can instantiate three distinct constructions: a passive NCI, a descriptive NCI and an evidential NCI. Though the latter one especially can be seen to be 'more grammatical' than the passive NCI, it is not the result of a grammaticalization change that has taken place inside English or Dutch. In English the evidential NCI did become a productive schematic construction that grew to be very useful in journalistic and academic discourses. In Dutch, on the other hand, the productivity of the NCI constructions has much decreased after a brief 18th-century peak. English and Dutch do have in common, however, that a couple of substantive evidential NCI patterns grammaticalized into deontic NCI constructions, which at present is the most frequent NCI construction in Dutch. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Believe-type raising-to-object and raising-to-subject verbs in English and Dutch : a contrastive investigation in diachronic construction grammar

The so-called 'raising-to-subject' pattern that verbs of the type believe can occur in is usually treated as the passive alternative for the so-called 'raising-to-object' pattern. In addition to broadening the empirical basis for the opposite claim that the English and Dutch raising-to-subject (or 'nominative and infinitive') patterns have a special functionality which is different from that of the passive construction, this paper specifically examines the stronger proposition that this has always been the case. It empirically investigates whether this proposition holds equally well for English and Dutch through a comparison of the frequencies of believe-type raising-to-object and raising-to-subject patterns in two diachronic corpora. The methodology makes use of Distinctive Collexeme Analysis

Corpus-based diachronic construction grammar at work: tracing the history of Dutch deontic NCI patterns

Special Theme: Pragmatics and its interfacesPanel - Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics [Part 2 of 3]: 2-4-15-