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The verbal to-infinitive and the third construction
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Verbal to-infinitives are selected by the following verbs: the modal verb hoege need, some control verbs such as doare dare and besykje try and epistemic raising verbs such as lykje appear and skine seem.

The selecting verbs can all appear in a clause-union structure with their infinitival complement, but they may differ depending on other selectional properties. The classification above is based on differences in selectional properties, as well as on semantic properties of the verbs involved.

The selecting verb generally requires that in the clause-union structure the to-infinitive occurs right-adjacent to itself, as in the following example:

1
Omdat gjinien har mei har wurk hoegde te helpen
because nobody her with her work need to help
Because nobody needed to help her with her work

It is a characteristic of verbal infinitives that the infinitive generally does not occur to the left of the selecting verb:

2
?*Omdat gjinien har mei har wurk te helpen hoegde
because nobody her with her work to help need
Because nobody needed to help her with her work

If the two verbs are not adjacent, there may nevertheless still be clause-union: this type of construction is referred to as the third construction:

3
?Omdat er har doe pas doarde mei har wurk te helpen
because he her then only dared with her work to help
Because only then did he dare to help her with her work

clause-union entails that the middle field (also referred to as extended projection) of a selected verb is joined to the middle field of a selecting verb. As a result, arguments of the embedded verb can appear in the domain (or middle field or extended projection) of the selecting verb. The middle field of a verb is the structure in which direct and indirect object Noun Phrases (NPs) are realised for example.

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More details about the verbal to-infinitive and the third construction can be found by following the corresponding links:

References
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