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Contrastive Studies in Verbal Valency
Edited by Lars Hellan, Andrej L. Malchukov and Michela Cennamo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 237] 2017
► pp. 83–108

Infinitives

A comparative German-Norwegian study

| NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

In this article we discuss bare infinitive constructions in German and Norwegian, presenting research conducted as part of a comparative valence project. The project approaches valency from a construction oriented perspective, and combines the creation of Open Access monolingual Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT-data), with theoretical work that profiles these resources. Analytically the article builds on Bech's inventory of non-finite verb forms, and their behaviour in hypotactic verb chains. Our focus is on aspectual and perception verbs in German and Norwegian. Object control and switched control for deontic modal infinitives are discussed within the Lexical Functional Grammar framework, highlighting semantic in addition to functional constraints.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Selected infinitives
    • 2.1Tense and Aspect infinitive constructions (TA constructions)
    • 2.2Norwegian and German Aspect constructions
    • 2.3First form infinitive constructions
      • 2.3.1Hypotactic chains and infinitives
      • 2.3.2Modal verbs
      • 2.3.3Perception verbs
  • 3.Subject and object control
    • 3.1Subject control
    • 3.2Object control
      • 3.2.1Object control in a case language
      • 3.2.2Deontic switch control
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.237.03bee
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