A CORPUS‐DRIVEN STUDY OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE SYNTACTIC COMBINATION STRENGTH AND THE SEMANTIC CONTRIBUTION IN THE ENGLISH “V‐TO‐V” CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

This paper conducted a corpus‐driven study on the syntactic and semantic features of the first verb and the to‐infinitive in the “V‐to‐V” construction. It was found that the syntactic combination strength of the “V‐to‐V” construction and the semantic contribution of the first verb are in general negatively correlated. The “V‐to‐V” construction can, therefore, be classified into three types: (1) Hypotactic clause complex of expansion, where the two verbs in the “V‐to‐V” construction construe the two processes, with weak syntactic combination and high semantic contribution of the first verb; (2) Single verbal group, where the two verbs construe one process with the first verb being auxiliary, with strong syntactic combination and low semantic contribution of the first verb; (3) Hypotactic clause complex of projection, where the two verbs construe two processes, with flexible syntactic combination and high semantic contribution of the first verb. Such correlation can thus form a cline from hypotactic clause complex of expansion through hypotactic clause complex of projection to single verbal groups.