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4.4.Three main types of infinitival argument clauses
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Sections 4.2 and 4.3 have shown that we need to distinguish between verbs taking finite and verbs taking infinitival complement clauses, and that these types of complements introduce a number of issues of a more semantic or pragmatic nature. On top of this, this section will show that infinitival clauses do not constitute a single syntactic category but can be subdivided into at least the three formally different categories illustrated in (30): Om + te-infinitivals, te-infinitivals and bare infinitivals.

30
a. Jan beloofde [om PRO het boek naar Els te sturen].
om + te-infinitival
  Jan promised  comp  the book to Els  to send
  'Jan promised to send the book to Els.'
b. Jan beweerde [PRO het boek naar Els te sturen].
te-infinitival
  Jan claimed  the book  to Els  to send
  'Jan claimed to send the book to Els.'
c. Jan wilde [PRO het boek naar Els sturen].
bare infinitival
  Jan wanted  the book  to Els  send
  'Jan wanted to send the book to Els.'

The following sections will briefly introduce the three subtypes in (30). For reasons of presentation we begin with om + te-infinitivals and bare infinitivals, because we will see that te-infinitivals again fall into various subgroups, some of which behave more like om + te-infinitivals and some of which behave more like bare infinitivals.

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