morphological? - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

Nominal infinitives (and deverbal nouns)
in Spanish and French
Judith Meinschaefer
Universität Konstanz | Universität Würzburg
judith.meinschaefer@uni-konstanz.de | judith.meinschaefer@uni-wuerzburg.de
1 Introduction
Topic
• nominal infinitives = infinitives preceded by a determiner
• constructions like those in (1) for Spanish and (2) for French
(1) Spanish
a. una de aquellas mujeres para las cuales [ el vestir y calzar ] era lo más importante
'one of those women for whom clothing and putting on shoes was the most important thing'
b. Fue fácil y rápido [ el aprobar nuestra participaciónObj en este proyecto ].
'approving our participation in this project was easy and quick'
c. Nos favorece [ el pertenecer nosotrosSubj al municipio ].
'belonging to the municipality favours us'
Spanish
• allows a large array of nominal and verbal constructions containing infinitives, some
of which are exemplified in (1)
• in nominal constructions with infinitives, the infinitive can have the full range of verbal
argument structure
The Spanish constructions show parallels to English gerundive constructions.
French
• allows purely verbal infinitives, as in (2a)
• and purely nominal infinitives, as in (2b)
• but no event-denoting nominal infinitives that have argument structure, as in (2c).
(2) French
a. Je l'ai entendu [ parlerV ] très bien l'italien.
'I have heard him speak Italian very well'
b. [ Le déjeunerN ] a eu lieu à midi.
'Lunch took place at noon.'
c. *[ le rire des faiblesses d'autrui ]
'laughing about other persons' weaknesses'
Questions
• Given that infinitives have the distribution of ordinary verbs in many contexts, what
makes it possible to use them in nominal contexts, as well?
This question has been addressed in a large body of literature on Spanish infinitives,
English gerunds and other constructions, and a variety of different
analyses have been proposed.
• How can we account for the difference between Spanish and French?
Is it the same mechanism that generates the Spanish constructions, which are
unrestricted with regard to argument structure, and the French constructions,
which are severely restricted with regard to argument structure?
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