The origin and development of 'for'-infinitives
This thesis is primarily concerned with the developments that have taken place in infinitival constructions in the late Old English, Middle English, and Modern English periods. It is an investigation into the status of Old English to-infinitive, the origin, nature, and distribution offor in Middle English (for)to-infinitival constructions, and the origin and reanalysis offor as a complementiser in the Modern English [for DP to VP] construction. In chapter one, we introduce some of the basic notions of the Minimalist Program outlined in Chornsky (1993,1995)). The airn of chapter two is to account for the structural status of to in the Old English toinfmitive. It is argued in this chapter that firstly (functional) C, Agr, and T are not eligible positions for to, and secondly that to occupies the lexical category P(reposition). The prepositional status of the Old English to-infinitive is supported by the fact that it occurs in coordination with ordinary PPs. Chapter three argues that the Old English to-infinitive should be treated as a single (morphological and) syntactic unit which cannot be broken up by intervening elements. We propose that to is generated with a D-feature and that the infinitival verb is a
Jarad, Najib Isma'il
Historical linguistics; Middle English syntax
The origin and development of 'for'-infinitives. This thesis is primarily concerned with the developments that have taken place in infinitival constructions in the late Old English, Middle English, and Modern English periods. It is an investigation into the status of Old English to-infinitive, the origin, nature, and distribution offor in Middle English (for)to-infinitival constructions, and the origin and reanalysis offor as a complementiser in the Modern English [for DP to VP] construction. In chapter one, we introduce some of the basic notions of the Minimalist Program outlined in Chornsky (1993,1995)). The airn of chapter two is to account for the structural status of to in the Old English toinfmitive. It is argued in this chapter that firstly (functional) C, Agr, and T are not eligible positions for to, and secondly that to occupies the lexical category P(reposition). The prepositional status of the Old English to-infinitive is supported by the fact that it occurs in coordination with ordinary PPs. Chapter three argues that the Old English to-infinitive should be treated as a single (morphological and) syntactic unit which cannot be broken up by intervening elements. We propose that to is generated with a D-feature and that the infinitival verb is a
origin_development for primarily_concern development take_place construction late old_english middle_english modern_english period investigation status old_english infinitive origin_nature distribution middle_english construction origin reanalysis modern_english construction one_introduce basic notion minimalist_program outline account structural status old_english argue firstly functional agr position secondly occupy lexical_category reposition prepositional status old_english infinitive support fact occurs coordination ordinary pps argue old_english infinitive treat single morphological_syntactic unit broken intervening element propose generate feature verb