Chapter 3 - LOT publications

56 The putative uniqueness of try
and other ConCo constructions is that conative try constructions can be paraphrased as
infinitives. 1 In contrast, ConCo constructions can only be paraphrased with a purposeadjunct
reading.
(2) a. John will try and eat an apple [Conative try]
b. John will try to eat an apple
‘*John will try, in order to eat an apple’
(3) a. John will go and eat an apple [ConCo]
b. John will go to eat an apple
‘John will go, in order to eat an apple’
(4) a. John will sit and eat an apple [ConCo]
b. John will sit to eat an apple
‘John will sit, in order to eat an apple’
Secondly, despite their atypicality, examples with try have informed a number of
studies (e.g. Carden and Pesetsky (1977)) adding to the confusion between ConCo and
SceCo and leading to incorrect generalizations. For these reasons I consider it vitally
important to establish the place of conative try in the typology I have developed. To
this end, I will apply the tests developed in the first part of this chapter. I will show
that conative try constructions differ from ConCo constructions with sit and go in most
respects.
3.1.1 Morphological conditions
Another salient and curious difference between conative try and ConCo and SceCo
is that it cannot tolerate any inflection (Carden and Pesetsky 1977, Schmerling 1975).
Only the bare forms of the verbs can occur in this construction. The same is not true of
other ConCo verbs like sit and go. 2 The following examples illustrate this with respect
to bare verbs, present tense, past tense and participle morphology.
(5) a. John will try and eat an apple [Conative try]
b. John will go and eat an apple [ConCo]
c. John will sit and eat an apple
(6) a. *John tries and eats an apple [Conative try]
b. John goes and eats an apple [ConCo]
c. John sits and eats an apple
1 This idea is expressed as far back as Gleitman (1965).
2 Pullum (1990) notes that try and V constructions act like bare aspectual come and go (Jaeggli and
Hyams 1993) in being subject to a morphological condition prohibiting inflection on these forms.