Semantico-syntactic analysis of passive tough-infinitives in Present-day English

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24520555
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Science
• Principal Investigator: MARUTA Tadao 東京理科大学, 理学部, 教授 (10115074)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: tough adjectives / passive infinitive / lexical semantics

Outline of Final Research Achievements

According to prescriptive grammars, tough constructions with passive infinitives such as (1) are supposed to be ungrammatical. Instead, (2) is legitimate: (1) This book is easy to be read; (2) This book is easy to read. In the generative grammar, (1) will also be ruled out as the raising operation (tough-Movement) only target at the object in the infinitive. However, in these days, so-called passive infinitives have been allowed particularly in American English. Note, however, that the subject of the infinitive cannot be always raised to the surface subject position, but it is only allowed when the voice of the infinitive is passive. In my project, I attribute the possibility of passive infinitives to the voice nature of tough adjectives. In fact, those adjectives with lexically passive meaning such as ready or fit can show passive infinitives: (3) The car is ready to be washed.

Free Research Field

英語学