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Selecting a bare infinitive

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The copula komme come combines with a restricted set of bare infinitives. These infinitives usually consist of an argumentless adposition of approach such as the particle oan to or op up and a verb of manner of motion such as drave run, rinne walk, bongelje saunter, and so on. Two examples are given below:

Út in sydstrjitte kaam it frommiske oandraven

from a sidestreet came the woman P.run

The woman came running from a sidestreet

In roppende seekob, dy't hommels út de damp wei opsetten komt

a shrieking seagull which suddenly out the fog away up.set comes

A shrieking seagull which suddenly appears out of the fog

The second example shows that the adposition of approach may be accompanied by a source Adposition Phrase (PP).

The infinitive has the form of a gerund. An ordinary infinitive is not allowed:

*Doe kaam fan it doarp ôf in âlderwetsk Breugeliaansk mantsje oanhompe

then came from the village away an old-fashioned Breughel man P.limp.OI

Then from the village came limping an old-fashioned Breughel old-timer

Doe kaam fan it doarp ôf in âlderwetsk Breugeliaansk mantsje oanhompen

then came from the village away an old-fashioned Breughel man P.limp.GI

Then from the village came limping an old-fashioned Breughel old-timer

The particle of approach is only found in this construction built around the auxiliary of coming, hence it only occurs with the infinitival form of the verb of motion. Therefore, the following are ungrammatical, though they might have been in use in nineteenth-century Frisian or earlier:

?*Doe hompte fan it doarp ôf in âlderwetsk Breugeliaansk mantsje oan

then limped from the village away an old-fashioned Breughel man P

Then limped from the village an old-fashioned Breughel old-timer

?*Út in sydstrjitte draafde it frommiske oan

from a sidestreet ran the woman P

The woman ran from a sidestreet

The infinitival verb can denote any kind of motion, involving both frequent verbs like rinne and infrequent verbs like bongelje saunter:

Soa, komsto dêr ek noch oanbongeljen?

so come.you R DcP DcP P.dangle

So, you were not in a hurry to get here

De boy komt oanrinnen en kriget de koffers

the boy comes P.walk and gets the suitcases

The boy walks towards them and picks up the suitcases

The copula of coming does not normally combine with verbs of body posture, although such examples are occasionally found, but only in recent literature, a sure sign of Dutch interference. The example below is from 1988:

In frjemde man komt derby sitten

a strange man comes R.at sit

A strange man comes and sits with them

Normally, it is verbs like bliuwe stay and gean go which selects bare infinitives built on a (verb of body posture). So it seems that the verb of coming has come to accept bare infinitives which otherwise only combine with the verbs of staying and going. This minor widening of selection restrictions may or may not be caused by pressure from Dutch, which allows the verb of staying to combine with all sorts of verbs. It seems that the widening of selection restrictions has also taken place the other way about, that is, from the verb of coming to the verb of staying, see selecting a bare infinitive.

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About this article

Author(s): Eric Hoekstra

Category: Frisian Syntax

Keywords: bare infinitive

Version: 1.0, December 2015

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Eric Hoekstra	December 2015

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