One Language, Two Grammars? - part 6

100% 90% 80% Non-finite complements 221 615/783 70% 60% 24/ 50% 35 40% 30% 20% 10% 23/ 31 20/42 24/ 52 693/ 910 0% to lay laying remaining uses all instances excl. pre-modified uses of claim Figure 11.6 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb-noun collocation lay claim(s) in various British present-day newspapers for 1990–200421 A detailed analysis of the examples found in the corpus involving the greatest number of instances (the present-day British newspapers illustrated in Figure 11.5) reveals that it is useful to distinguish at least two morphosyntactic categories of the verb lay: a) laying, b) to lay (compared to the remaining uses Ø lay, lays, laid). Firstly, the overall entrenchment value of about 75 per cent for gerundial complements is not reached if the verb lay appears in the shape of an -ing form itself, as in example (8a). In cases like these (cf. the column represent-ing all instances of the category laying in Figure 11.6), a complement involv-ing another -ing form is obviously felt to be less acceptable than in other morphosyntactic environments (cf. also Ross 1972). Instead, an infinitival complement tends to be used to avoid a clash of two -ing forms. (8) a. The public hearing has been set to start on Nov 24 and is certain to assume the drama of another show trial of the woman who, while no longer laying claim to be ‘mother of the nation’, has unabashed ambition for high political office. (Daily Telegraph 1997) b. ... they found it difficult to lay claim to be British. (Guardian 1995) This effect can be accounted for by the horror aequi Principle: The horror aequi Principle involves the widespread (and presumably universal) tendency to avoid the use of formally (near-) identical and (near-) adjacent (non-coordinate) grammatical elements or structures. (Rohdenburg 2003a: 236) 21 p < 0.1%*** for both contrasts between to lay/laying/remaining uses. 222 One Language, Two Grammars? Bolinger (1979: 44) remarks that ‘The closer the echo, the worse it sounds. Two -ings with a preposition are better than two without.’22 Accordingly, compared to verbs immediately followed by non-finite complements (as in startingdoingortostarttodo),thehorroraequieffectisweakenedinthecaseof agerundialconstructioncomplementingverb-nouncollocations(asinlaying claim to doing), because here thetwo -ing formsare not directly adjacent with the noun claim and the preposition to providing a buffer. It is clear that once the gerundial complement is almost fully established, there is virtually no possibility of avoiding it by means of the infinitive any more. In horror aequi contexts such as in laying claim to (playing) an important role, we often find that (non-finite) complementation escapes into the domain ofnon-sententialstructures.Incaseslikethese,anon-finitecomplementform (and therefore a sequence of two -ing forms) can be dispensed with altogether andreplacedbya(non-sentential)NPobject(seeVosberg2003a,2006,forthe verb avoid). The second potential horror aequi context is represented by the morpho-syntactic category to lay, as in example (8b). In cases where the matrix expression takes a marked infinitive itself, the horror aequi Principle predicts that another to-infinitive complementing the collocation would tend to be largelyavoided.Inotherwords,wewouldexpecttheproportionofgerundial complements (cf. the column representing all instances of the category to lay in Figure 11.6) to be much higher than for the remaining uses of lay. However, this does not turn out to be the case. Thus, a string of two infinitives is obviously not judged to be as unusual and awkward as two successive -ing forms. One major reason why structures like (8b) are fully acceptable is the fact that the old and well-known infinitive is still much more entrenched in the English complementation system than the gerund. In addition to the horror aequi Principle, there seems to be yet another extra-semantic factor determining the choice of non-finite complement forms. The noun claim is occasionally qualified by grammatical or lexical elements such as determiners or adjectives like the ones in (9a/b). (9) a. His grandfather, a stucco decorator, could lay some claim to be an artist ... (Daily Telegraph 1995) b. A gold medallist at Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta, Redgrave can already lay justifiable claim to be regarded as Britain’s greatest Olympian ... (Daily Telegraph 2000) It follows from Figure 11.7 (see the columns representing all instances) that thesepremodifiedusesofclaimtendtopreferinfinitivalcomplementsrather 22 It should be noted at this stage that surface (phonetic) identity alone does not seem to be a trigger of horror aequi. It is considered objectionable only when it coincides with a maximum of grammatical similarity (see also Hoekstra and Wolf 2004). Thus, Bolinger’s (1979:44)exclusivelyeuphonicmotivationmentionedaboveshouldbeviewedwithcaution. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% Non-finite complements 223 615/783 78/127 658/856 83/141 0% pre-modified uses of claim unqualified uses of claim all instances excl. to lay/laying Figure 11.7 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb-noun collocation lay claim(s) in various British present-day newspapers23 than -ing forms. According to the Complexity Principle, this does not come as a surprise, because qualification clearly increases the (cognitive) complex-ity of the expression so that the (presumably) more explicit complement option – the infinitive – is preferred in these cases. So far, two extra-semantic factors have been shown to exert considerable influence on the choice of competing complement types: horror aequi and cognitive complexity. One of the most intriguing issues in multifactorial analyses is the question of how and to what extent different factors influence (weaken or reinforce) one another. As for the area under investigation, there does not seem to be any interference between the two factors here: exclusion of the competing factor (see the right columns in Figures 11.6 and 11.7) always shows (more or less) the same contrast as suggested by the figures representing all examples. 5 Can’t stand A distributional difference between the two national varieties is also quite evidentin thecaseof infinitivalandgerundial complementsoftheverbstand used in the sense of ‘bear’24 and preceded by the auxiliaries can or could. All casesconsideredinvolveanovertmarkerofnegativitysuchastheparticlenot 23 p < 0.1%*** for both contrasts between premodified and unqualified uses. 24 This excludes cases such as the following: (i) But pardon me I beseech you, good master Freeman, the day weares, and I haue farre to go, therefore I cannot stand to tell out the rest: but at our next meeting in troth you shall knowe all; therfore let vs paye our shotte and be walking. (EEPF: Edward Sharpham, The Discouerie of the Knights of the Poste, 1597) 224 One Language, Two Grammars? 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 17/19 18/22 19th c. and early 20th c. 6/16 late 20th c. 125/193 114/ 363 1990–5 279/465 57/ 170 1996–2004 (fiction) BrE (newspapers) AmE Figure 11.8 The development of non-finite complements dependent on the verb cannot/could not stand in various historical and present-day corpora (NCF, EAF, MNC, LNC, ETC, BNC/ wridom1; t90–04, g90–04, d91–00, m93–00, i93–94, i02–04; W90–92, L92–99, D92–95, N01)25 (including the corresponding contracted forms) or certain non-assertive adverbial expressions like no longer or hardly.26 (10) Pon my honour, I can’t stand seeing a whole family going to destruction! (NCF1: Susan Ferrier, Marriage, 1818) As can be seen from Figure 11.8, the construction was very rare in the texts covering the last two centuries, and the gerundial complement option has been losing ground to the infinitival variant in both BrE and AmE.27 The collection of present-day newspapers shows that in AmE the decline of-ingcomplementsismuchfurtheradvancedthanintheparentvariety(see also the evidence provided by Tottie 2002c). Additionally, AmE makes use of this construction (involving non-finite complements) much more fre-quently than BrE: 0.27 instances pmw in the British newspapers for 1990–5 and 0.7 instances pmw in the transatlantic newspapers for the same period. Again, there is a highly suggestive correlation between the overall frequency anddevelopmentalstages.Itshouldbementioned,though,thatthefrequency 25 An American corpus comprising late twentieth-century texts, and thus being equivalent to the British National Corpus (BNC), is still under construction. 26 Br–Am contrast: p < 0.1%*** for both 1990–5 and 1996–2004; diachronic contrast: p ¼ 0.13% < 1%** for the fictional British corpora; all others n.s. 27 The analysis excludes, however, interrogatives such as (i) How can you stand to watch this? (Los Angeles Times 1997) It is found that these uses of stand are predominantly followed by infinitival complements. Non-finite complements 225 Table 11.3 The distribution of non-finite complements dependent on the verb cannot/ could not stand (incl. contractions and non-affirmative adverbs) in various British newspapers for 1996–2004 BrE newspapers for 1996–2004 to -ing total 1a can þ negative form 1b could þ negative form 2a non-contracted form of can/could 2b contracted form of can/could 3a can/could þ seldom/barely/hardly/no longer þ stand cannot/ can’t/could not/ couldn’t þ really/even/longer þ stand 3b remaining (straightforward) cases 112 173 (60.7%) 285 74 106 (58.9%) 180 65 53 (44.9%) 118 121 226 (65.1%) 347 19 4 (17.4%) 23 167 275 (62.2%) 442 4 Total 186 279 (60.0%) 465 ofthisconstructionhasbeendecreasinginAmE,whilein BrEithasremained nearly constant: 0.33 instances pmw in the British newspapers for 1996–2004 and 0.5 instances pmw in the corresponding American newspapers. The question as to which of the two auxiliaries is actually used (either can or could) does not seem to be very influential in the choice of the two non-finite complement forms (cf. Table 11.3,28 lines 1a/b). However, the increasing tendency to use the (informal) contracted forms of the construction can/could þnot involving the verb stand obviously helps to delay the decline of gerundial complements (cf. Table 11.3, lines 2a/b). These findings are in accordance with the informal character of the -ing form as compared to the infinitival option (cf. Fanego 1996a: 75–6 for the situation in Early Modern English, and Miller 1993: 130 for non-standard varieties).29 The previous section has shown that some kind of qualification of the predicate expression (lay some/justifiable claim) can preserve the accept-ability of infinitival complementation a bit longer than usual. Similar obser-vations can be made for the variable complementation of the verb (can’t) stand. Table11.3(lines3a/b)shows thatanyadverbialmaterialmodifyingthe matrixexpressionandinterveningbetweenthemodalauxiliary(canorcould) and the main verb (stand) tends to increase the use of the infinitival comple-ment of this construction: compare the examples in (11a/b). (11) a. ... because she has been so traumatised by harassment from Baiul that she can no longer stand to hear the name Oksana. (Guardian 1997) 28 n.s. for lines 1a/b, p ¼ 0.01% < 0.1%** for 2a/b, p < 0.1%*** 3a/b. 29 It is, however, doubtful whether the Complexity Principle would be able to account for the preference ofto-infinitives ascomplements ofstandfollowingnon-contracted forms ofcan/ couldþnot, because it is far from clear whether the contraction is indicative of a cognitively less demanding structure. ... - tailieumienphi.vn