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5.2.3.3.Perception verbs

quickinfo

Perception verbs like zien'to see' and horen'to hear' can select a finite or a bare infinitival complement clause. Examples showing this are given in (667), in which the complement clauses are in italics, subsection I starts by pointing out some differences in meaning between the two types of construction.

667

a.	Jan zag	dat	Marie/zij	aan haar dissertatie	werkte.	finite
	Jan saw	that	Marie/she	on her dissertation	worked
	'Jan saw that Marie/she was working on her PhD thesis.'

a'.	Jan zag	Marie/haar	aan haar dissertatie	werken.	bare infinitival
	Jan saw	Marie/her	on her dissertation	work
	'Jan saw Marie/her working on her PhD thesis.'

b.	Marie hoorde	dat	Peter/hij	in de keuken	werkte.	finite
	Marie heard	that	Peter/he	in the kitchen	worked
	'Marie heard that Peter/he was working in the kitchen.'

b'.	Marie hoorde	Peter/hem	in de keuken	werken.	bare infinitival
	Marie heard	Peter/him	in the kitchen	work
	'Marie heard Peter/him working in the kitchen.'

In some grammars, the perception verbs are taken to be non-main verbs when they select a bare infinitival clause; Subsection II will discuss our reasons for assuming that they are main verbs, just like when they take a finite clause. The primed examples in (667) are different from most other cases in which a main verb takes a bare infinitival clause in that the subject of the infinitival clause appears as the accusative object of the construction as a whole, which is known as the accusativus-cum-infinitivo (AcI) effect, subsection III will show that this fact makes an analysis of the phrases headed by the bare infinitive as bare-inf nominalizations very unlikely since the subjects of the input verb of such nominalizations are normally left implicit or expressed by means of a van- or a door-PP; they are never expressed by means of a noun phrase. However, since example (668) shows that the subject of the bare infinitival clause can be omitted under certain conditions as well, we still have to appeal to the tests in Table (599) from Section 5.2.3 in order to establish whether we are dealing with verbal or nominal complements in cases like these.

668

Ik	hoorde	(de kinderen)	een liedje	zingen.
I	heard	the children	a song	sing
'I heard (the children) sing a song.'

The discussion continues in Subsection IV with a more detailed discussion of the behavior and distribution of the subject of the bare infinitival verb as well as the AcI-effect, subsection V concludes the discussion with a number of smaller remarks.

I. Meaning: direct involuntary sensory perception
II. Perception verbs are main verbs
III. Perception verbs take bare infinitival complement clauses
IV. The subject of the bare infinitival clause
V. Some additional remarks on perception verbs
- A. Aan het + Infinitive complement?
- B. Nominalization of AcI-constructions

[+] I. Meaning: direct involuntary sensory perception

Example (667) above shows that perception verbs like zien'to see' and horen'to hear' can select finite or bare infinitival complement clauses. This subsection discusses an important semantic difference between the two types of clauses: whereas constructions with a bare infinitival complement clause normally imply that the subject of the perception verb is a witness of the eventuality denoted by the infinitival clause, constructions with a finite complement clause leave this issue open.
Section 5.1.2.1, sub II, has shown that we should distinguish two groups of perception verbs: verbs of involuntary and verbs of voluntary perception. The difference is especially clear in the domain of vision and hearing: zien'to see' and horen'to hear' are used for involuntary perception, whereas kijken'to look' and luisteren'to listen' are used for the active use of vision and hearing. The two verb types differ markedly in how they handle complementation by means of a finite clause; whereas verbs of involuntary perception normally take declarative finite clauses as their complement, verbs of voluntary perception normally take interrogative clauses. Since Section 5.1.2.1, sub II, has also shown that the verbs proeven'to taste', ruiken'to smell' and voelen'to feel' can be used in both contexts, we may conclude that these verbs are homophonous.

669

a.	Marie zag/*keek	[dat	de zon	opkwam].
	Marie saw/looked	that	the sun	prt.-rose
	'Marie saw that the sun was rising.'

a'.	Marie keek/*zag	[of	de zon	opkwam].
	Marie looked/saw	whether	the sun	prt.-rose
	'Marie looked whether the sun was rising.'

b.	Jan hoorde/*luisterde	[dat	de deur	klapperde].
	Jan heard/listened	that	the door	rattle
	'Jan heard that the door was rattling.'

b'.	Jan luisterde/*hoorde	[of	de deur	klapperde].
	Jan listened/heard	whether	the door	rattle
	'Jan listened whether the door was rattling.'

The examples in (670) show that the two types of perception verb differ in yet another way: whereas the verbs of involuntary perception may occur in AcI-constructions, the verbs of voluntary perception cannot. For convenience, the bare infinitival clauses are given in straight brackets and their subjects in italics; in order to avoid confusion it should be noted that the brackets are used here to indicate that the strings form semantic units and are not intended to imply that these strings are also syntactic units: we will see in Subsection III that these strings may be discontinuous if the finite verb is in clause-final position.

670

a.	Marie zag/*keek	[de zon	opkomen].
	Marie saw/looked	the sun	prt.-rise
	'Marie saw the sun rise.'

b.	Jan hoorde/*luisterde	[de deur	klapperen].
	Jan heard/listened	the door	rattle
	'Jan heard the door rattle.'

The primeless acceptable examples in (669) differ semantically from the acceptable ones in (670) in that only the latter imply that the subject of the perception verb actually witnessed the eventuality expressed by the infinitival clause. This can be demonstrated by means of the contrast in (671): (671b) is awkward as it is incompatible with our knowledge of the world, since we know that the rising of the sun cannot be perceived auditorily; (671a), on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable because Marie may have had some indirect auditory evidence for assuming that the sun was rising—she may have been told so or she may have heard that the birds started singing.

671

a.	Marie hoorde	[dat	de zon	opkwam].
	Marie heard	that	the sun	prt.-rose
	'Marie heard that the sun was rising.'

b.	$	Marie hoorde	[de zon	opkomen].
		Marie heard	the sun	prt.-rise

Since the AcI-constructions express that the subjects of the perception verbs have direct sensory evidence for assuming that the proposition expressed by the bare infinitival clause is true, it is tempting to interpret AcI-constructions of this type as evidential sensory modal constructions in the sense of Palmer's (2001) classification of modal constructions, which was introduced in Section 5.2.3.2, sub III. A semantic argument in favor of this might be built on Palmer's claim that cross-linguistically there are normally no more than three different markers for expressing sensory evidentiality: one for seeing, one for hearing, and one functioning as a multi-purpose marker. This seems consistent with the fact that especially the verbs proeven'to taste' and ruiken'to smell' are rare in Dutch AcI-constructions; although the primeless examples in (672) are perfectly acceptable, their AcI-counterparts are marked and certainly not very frequent; see Haeseryn et al. (1997: 1014) for the same observation.

672

a.	Ik	proef	[dat	het snoepje	van smaak	verandert].
	I	taste	that	the candy	of flavor	changes
	'Iʼm tasting that the candy is changing its flavor.'

a'.	??	Ik	proef	[het snoepje	van smaak	veranderen].
		I	taste	the candy	of flavor	change

b.	Ik	ruik	[dat	de aardappelen	aanbranden].
	I	smell	that	the potatoes	prt-burn
	'I smell that the potatoes are getting burnt.'

b'.	??	Ik	ruik	[de aardappelen	aanbranden].
		I	smell	the potatoes	prt-burn

AcI-constructions with the perception voelen'to feel' seem to have an intermediate status; although they are not very frequent, examples such as (673) are impeccable and are easy to find on the internet.

673

a.		Ik	voel	[mijn vingers	tintelen].
		I	feel	my fingers	tingle

b.	Ik	voelde	[het glas	uit mijn vingers	glijden].
	I	felt	the glass	from my fingers	slip
	'I felt the glass slip from my fingers.'

While examples with verbs proeven'to taste', ruiken'to smell' and voelen'to feel' are not common, Dutch seems to have a multi-purpose verb that may be found in AcI-constructions to express sensory perception, namely the verb vinden'to think/consider'. The examples in (674) show that this verb can be used in the context of all types of sensory stimuli. Observe that vinden differs from the perception verbs in that it normally also expresses some sort of subjective evaluation by the subject of vinden; Marie has a high opinion of Jan's dancing skills, she likes the taste/smell of the soup, but dislikes the feel of the sweater on her skin.

674

a.	Marie vindt	[Jan goed	dansen en zingen].	vision/hearing
	Marie thinks	Jan well	dance and sing
	'Marie thinks that Jan is dancing and singing well.'

b.	Marie vindt	[die soep	lekker	ruiken/smaken].	smell/taste
	Marie thinks	that soup	nice	smell/taste
	'Marie thinks that the soup smells/taste nice.'

c.	Marie vindt	[die trui	naar	prikken].	touch
	Marie thinks	that sweater	unpleasantly	prickle
	'Marie thinks that that sweater is unpleasantly itchy.'

It is important in this connection to stress that eventualities that cannot be directly perceived by means of the senses cannot be used in AcI-constructions with vinden. This is illustrated in the examples in (675); since the truth of the states of Peter knowing a great deal and Jan being a nice person cannot be directly perceived by the senses, the examples in (675) are unsuitable. We added example (675b') to show that the requirement that the eventuality be directly perceived by the senses holds for bare infinitival constructions only; if vinden takes a complementive, the resulting construction simply expresses a subjective evaluation.

675

a.	*	Marie vindt	[Peter veel	weten].
		Marie thinks	Peter much	know
		'Intended reading 'Marie thinks that Peter knows much.'

b.	*	Marie vindt	[Peter	aardig	zijn].
		Marie thinks	Peter	kind	be
		Intended reading: 'Marie considers Peter to be kind.'

b'.		Marie vindt	[Peter intelligent/aardig].
		Marie considers	Peter intelligent/kind

Section 5.2.3.2, sub III, has shown that many modal verbs selecting a bare infinitival complement clause can be used in several modal functions. If verbs of involuntary perception are indeed modal in nature, we expect to see something similar with these verbs; this seems to be confirmed by the perception verb zien'to see'. A special interpretation of the infinitival construction containing zien'to see' is what Van der Leek (1988) refers to as the illusory reading: example (676a) does not express that Jan is observing some eventuality but that he surmises that Peter will go to London soon; along the same lines, example (676b) expresses that Jan does not expect that Els will leave soon. It thus seems that in these uses the verb zien'to see' expresses some kind of epistemic modality.

676

a.	Jan ziet	Peter binnenkort	naar Londen	gaan.
	Jan sees	Peter soon	to London	go
	'Jan envisages that Peter will go to London soon.'

b.	Jan ziet	Els	niet	snel	vertrekken.
	Jan sees	Els	not	soon	leave
	'Jan canʼt quite see Els leaving soon.'

Note in passing that it is not clear whether the negation in (676b) is part of the infinitival or the matrix clause given that subject of the embedded infinitival clause, the noun phrase Els, may have been scrambled across it. In principle, pronominalization should be able to clarify whether negation can be construed with the perception verb, but unfortunately it seems that (for some as yet unknown reason) pronominalization does not yield a satisfactory result: the example #Jan ziet dat (niet) does not readily allow the intended epistemic reading.

[+] II. Perception verbs are main verbs

Based on the assumption that clauses can have at most one main verb, Haeseryn et al. (1997:946-7) claim that perception verbs function as non-main verbs in AcI-constructions. This leads to the conclusion that perception verbs are homophonous: they are main verbs if they take a noun phrase or a finite clause as their object, but non-main verbs if they take a bare infinitival clause. Given that the core meaning of the perception verbs is similar in all these cases, this conclusion is a little suspicious. Our definition that main verbs are verbs with an argument structure, on the other hand, treats all cases in a uniform way.
First, the examples in (677) show that bare infinitival complement clauses selected by perception verbs can be pronominalized. The standard assumption that (pronominal) noun phrases must be assigned a thematic role (that is, be semantically licensed) by the verb, in tandem with our claim that non-main verbs are incapable of doing this, leads to the conclusion that perception verbs are also main verbs in AcI-constructions. The coindexing indicates that the pronoun dat has the same interpretation as the infinitival clause within brackets.

677

a.	Marie/zij	zag	[de zon	opkomen]i	en	Jan/hij	zag	dati	ook.
	Marie/she	saw	the sun	prt.-rise	and	Jan/he	saw	that	too
	'Marie/she saw the sun rise, and Jan/he saw that too.'

b.	Jan/hij hoorde	[de deur	klapperen]i	en	Els/zij	hoorde	dati	ook.
	Jan/he heard	the door	rattle	and	Els/she	heard	that	too
	'Jan/he heard the door rattle and Els/she heard that too.'

On top of this, it is clear that the nominative subjects of the constructions in (677) are not introduced as arguments of the bare infinitives but of the perception verbs. This again shows that perception verbs take arguments, and are therefore main verbs by definition.

[+] III. Perception verbs take bare infinitival complement clauses

Bare infinitives can be used as heads of both bare infinitival clauses and bare-inf nominalizations. As a result, it is not always possible to tell immediately whether constructions in which a main verb takes a bare infinitival involve nominal or clausal complementation. This subsection argues on the basis of the tests developed in Section 5.2.3.1, repeated here as (678), that perception verbs can actually take bare infinitival complement clauses.

678

		infinitival clause	nominalization
I	is part of the verbal complex	+	—
II	precedes/follows the governing verb	normally follows	precedes
III	triggers IPP-effect	+	—
IV	allows focus movement	—	+
V	may follow negative adverb niet'not'	+	—
Vi	can be preceded by the article geen'no'	—	+

We can distinguish two different cases, which will be discussed in two separate subsections: cases such as (679a) in which the subject of the bare infinitival is expressed by means of an accusative noun phrase and cases such as (679b) in which the subject is left implicit.

679

a.	Ik	hoorde	de kinderen	een liedje	zingen.
	I	heard	the children	a song	sing
	'I heard the children sing a song.'

b.		Ik	hoorde	een liedje	zingen.
		I	heard	a song	sing

[+] A. Phrases in which the subject of the bare infinitival is expressed

An overtly expressed subject of the bare infinitive makes it very unlikely that we are dealing with a bare-inf nominalization. The reason is that in nominalizations the subject of the input verb is never expressed by means of a prenominal noun phrase: it is either left implicit or it is expressed by a postnominal van- or door-PP. We illustrate this in (680) by means of nominalizations of an intransitive, a transitive and an unaccusative verb. Note that we used det-inf nominalizations in the primeless examples because bare-inf nominalizations greatly favor their nominal argument in prenominal position; we refer the reader to section N1.3.1.2, sub III for a detailed discussion of the position and form of the arguments of the two types of nominalization.

680

a.	[Het	lachen	(van kinderen)]	klinkt	vrolijk.	intransitive
	the	laughing	of children	sounds	merrily
	'The laughing of children sounds merry.'

a'.	*	[(Het)	kinderen	lachen]	klinkt	vrolijk.
		the	children	laugh	sounds	merry

b.	[Het	dieren	verzorgen	(door kinderen)]	is erg educatief.	transitive
	the	animals	look.after	by children	is quite educational
	'Caring for animals by children is highly educational.'

b'.	*	[(Het)	kinderen	dieren	verzorgen]	is erg educatief.
		the	children	animals	look.after	is quite educational

c.	[Het vallen	(van bladeren)]	gebeurt	in de herfst.	unaccusative
	the fall	of leaves	happens	in the autumn
	'The falling of leaves happens in autumn.'

c'.	*	[(Het)	bladeren	vallen]	gebeurt	in de herfst.
		the	leaves	fall	happens	in the autumn

The crucial thing for our present purpose is that the primed examples in (680) are unacceptable, regardless of whether or not the determiner het'the' is present, whereas the AcI-constructions in (681) are fully acceptable.

681

a.		Jan zag	[de kinderen	lachen].
		Jan saw	the children	laugh

b.	Jan zag	[de kinderen	de dieren	verzorgen].
	Jan saw	the children	the animals	look.after
	'Jan saw the children care for the animals.'

c.		Jan zag [de bladeren	vallen].
		Jan saw the leaves	fall

The fact that the subject of the input verbs of the nominalizations in (680) cannot be expressed by means of a noun phrase in prenominal position makes it very unlikely that the bracketed phrases in (681) are bare-inf nominalizations; we can safely conclude that we are dealing with bare infinitival complement clauses. That this is the correct analysis is also clear from the fact that the bare infinitivals allow splitting: the bare infinitives preferably follow the perception verbs in clause-final position and are thus normally separated from their nominal arguments, which must precede the clause-final verb cluster as a whole (test I and II in Table (678)).

682

a.	dat	Jan de kinderen	zag	lachen.
	that	Jan the children	saw	laugh
	'that Jan saw the children laugh.'

b.	dat	Jan	de kinderen	de dieren	zag	verzorgen.
	that	Jan	the children	the animals	saw	look.after
	'that Jan saw the children looking after the animals.'

c.	dat	Jan de bladeren	zag	vallen.
	that	Jan the leaves	saw	fall
	'that Jan saw the leaves fall.'

More support for assuming that we are dealing with bare infinitival complement clauses is that the presence of the bare infinitive triggers the IPP-effect (test III); in perfect-tense constructions such as (683), the perception verbs cannot surface as past participles but must occur in their infinitival form instead. The fact that the bare infinitives cannot precede the perception verb also shows that it is impossible to construe a bare infinitives as the head of a bare-inf nominalization (test II); cf. Jan heeft die film gezien'Jan has seen that movie'.

683

a.	Jan heeft	de kinderen	zien/*gezien	lachen.
	Jan has	the children	see/seen	laugh
	'Jan has seen the children laugh.'

a'.	*	Jan heeft	de kinderen	lachen	zien/gezien.
		Jan has	the children	laugh	see/seen

b.	Jan heeft	de kinderen	de dieren	zien/*gezien	verzorgen.
	Jan has	the children	the animals	see/seen	look.after
	'Jan has seen the children look after the animals.'

b'.	*	Jan heeft	de kinderen	de dieren	verzorgen	zien/gezien.
		Jan has	the children	the animals	look.after	see/seen

c.	Jan heeft	de bladeren	zien/*gezien	vallen.
	Jan has	the leaves	see/seen	fall
	'Jan has seen the leaves fall.'

c'.	*	Jan heeft	de bladeren	vallen	zien/gezien.
		Jan has	the leaves	fall	see/seen

Although these facts establish fairly firmly that the phrases between brackets in the AcI-constructions in (681) cannot be bare-inf nominalizations, we will nevertheless apply the remaining tests for the sake of completeness. First, the primeless examples in (684) show that the bare infinitives can follow the negative adverb niet but cannot be preceded by the negative article geen'no'; tests V and VI thus confirm that we are dealing with bare infinitivals.

684

a.	dat	Jan de kinderen	niet/*geen	lachen	zag.
	that	Jan the children	not/no	laugh	saw
	'that Jan didnʼt see the children laugh.'

b.	dat	Jan	de kinderen	de dieren	niet/*geen	verzorgen	zag.
	that	Jan	the children	the animals	not/no	look.after	saw
	'that Jan didnʼt see the children look after the animals.'

c.	dat	Jan de bladeren	niet/*geen	vallen	zag.
	that	Jan the leaves	not/no	fall	saw
	'that Jan didnʼt see the leaves fall.'

Second, the examples in (685) show that although the bare infinitives may precede the perception verbs in clause-final position, they cannot be moved further leftward by means of focus movement despite the fact that the intended meaning of these examples is completely plausible: "that Jan liked to see ....."; test IV thus confirms again that the bracketed phrases are not nominal but verbal in nature.

685

a.	*	dat	Jan	[de kinderen	lachen]	graag	zag.
		that	Jan	the children	laugh	gladly	saw

b.	*	dat	Jan	[de kinderen	de dieren	verzorgen]	graag	zag.
		that	Jan	the children	the animals	look.after	gladly	saw

c.	*	dat	Jan	[de bladeren	vallen]	graag	zag.
		that	Jan	the leaves	fall	gladly	saw

In short, we have ample evidence for concluding that the presence of a noun phrase corresponding to the subject of the bare infinitival is incompatible with analyses according to which the perception verb zien in (681) is complemented by a bare-inf nominalization—instead we are dealing with bare infinitival object clauses.

[+] B. Phrases in which the subject of the bare infinitival is left implicit

The subject of the embedded bare infinitival clause can be left implicit under certain conditions. Examples such as (686) suggest that the bare infinitive must be transitive; omitting the subject of monadic (intransitive and unaccusative) verbs normally gives rise to a marked result.

686

a.	Ik	hoorde	(de kinderen)	liedjes	zingen.	transitive
	I	heard	the children	songs	sing
	'I heard the children sing a song/I heard the song being sung.'

b.	Ik	hoorde	??(Peter)	slapen.	intransitive
	I	heard	Peter	sleep
	'I heard Peter sleep.'

c.	Ik hoorde	*(de kinderen)	stiekem	vertrekken.	unaccusative
	I heard	the children	sneakily	leave
	'I heard the children leave on the quiet.'

The degraded status of the examples in (686b&c) supports the conclusion from the previous subsection that perception verbs are incompatible with nominalizations as bare-inf nominalizations are not sensitive to the adicity of the input verb: the examples in (687) are all fully acceptable.

687

a.	Liedjes	zingen	is leuk.	transitive
	songs	sing	is fun
	'Singing songs is fun.'

b.	Slapen	is noodzakelijk.	intransitive
	sleep	is necessary
	'Sleeping is necessary.'

c.	Stiekem	vertrekken	is stout.	unaccusative
	sneakily	leave	is naughty
	'Leaving surreptitiously is naughty.'

The examples in (688) show, however, that there is at least one exception to the general rule that the subject of monadic verbs cannot be left out in AcI-constructions; verbs expressing sound emission normally give rise to fully acceptable results.

688

a.	Ik	hoorde	Peter	snurkenV.
	I	heard	Peter	snore
	'I heard Peter snore.'

a'.	Ik	hoorde	snurken?.
	I	heard	snore
	'I heard snoring.'

b.	Ik	hoorde	iemand	gillenV.
	I	heard	someone	scream
	'I heard someone scream.'

b'.	Ik	hoorde	gillen?.
	I	heard	scream
	'I heard screaming.'

c.	Ik	hoorde	de machine	brommenV.
	I	heard	the machine	buzz
	'I heard the machine buzz.'

c'.	Ik	hoorde	brommen?.
	I	heard	buzz
	'I heard buzzing.'

Since we cannot a priori exclude an analysis according to which the primed examples involve bare-inf nominalizations, we will investigate these cases in somewhat greater detail. Before we do so, it should be pointed out that the infinitival clause in example (686a), which is the one typically discussed in the descriptive and theoretical literature, likewise involves sound emission. This example may therefore belong to the same type as the examples in (688), which seems to be borne out by the fact that its pseudo-intransitive counterpart, Ik hoorde zingen (lit.: I heard sing), is acceptable; cf. Vanden Wyngaerd (1994:ch.3). For this reason, we will include example (686a) in our investigation below.
The tests from Table (678) should again be helpful in establishing whether the bare infinitive is nominal or verbal in nature, or whether it can be both. Let us first consider whether the infinitive can be verbal. If so, it should be part of the verbal complex and hence be able to appear last in the clause-final verb cluster (test I and II). The examples in (689) show that this is indeed the case, regardless of whether the subject of the infinitive is overtly expressed or implicit. The fact illustrated in (689b) that the constituent headed by the bare infinitive can be split by the verb horen likewise shows that the bare infinitive is part of the verb cluster.

689

a.	dat	ik	(Peter)	hoorde	snurkenV.
	that	I	Peter	heard	snore
	'that I heard Peter snore/that I heard snoring.'

b.	dat	ik	(de kinderen)	een liedje	hoorde	zingenV.
	that	I	the children	a song	heard	sing
	'that I heard the children sing a song/that I heard a song being sung.'

Test III applies to the examples in (690). That the bare infinitive can be verbal in nature is shown by the fact, illustrated by the primeless examples, that it triggers the IPP-effect, again regardless of whether the subject of the infinitive is overtly expressed or implicit. The primed examples show, however, that the IPP-effect does not arise if the bare infinitive precedes the verbal sequence. This, as well as the fact that the subject must be omitted in that case, shows that the bare infinitive can also be nominal in nature.

690

a.	dat	ik	(Peter)	heb	horen/*gehoord	snurkenV.
	that	I	Peter	have	hear/heard	snore
	'that Iʼve heard Peter snore.'

a'.	dat	ik	(*Peter)	snurkenN	heb	gehoord.
	that	I	Peter	snore	have	heard
	'that Iʼve heard snoring.'

b.	dat	ik	(de kinderen)	een liedje	heb	horen/*gehoord	zingenV.
	that	I	the children	a song	have	hear/heard	sing
	'that Iʼve heard the children sing a song.'

b'.	dat	ik	(*de kinderen)	een liedje	zingenN	heb	gehoord.
	that	I	the children	a song	sing	have	heard
	'that Iʼve heard singing of a song.'

That we are dealing with a nominalization is also clear from the fact illustrated in (691) that the phrase headed by the bare infinitive may undergo focus movement (test IV); again this requires that the subject be left implicit.

691

a.	dat	ik	(*Peter)	snurkenN	niet	graag	hoor.
	that	I	Peter	snore	not	gladly	hear
	'that I donʼt like to hear snoring.'

b.	dat	ik	(*de kinderen)	liedjes	zingenN	graag	hoor.
	that	I	the children	songs	sing	gladly	hear
	'that I like to hear singing of songs.'

That the bare infinitives can be verbal or nominal is also supported by the fact that the bare infinitive in example (692) can be preceded by either the negative adverb niet'not' or the negative article geen'no' (tests V and VI). In the former case, the bare infinitive must be interpreted as verbal, as is also clear from the fact that its subject can be overtly expressed, whereas in the latter case it must be parsed as nominal, as is also clear from the fact that its subject must be left implicit.

692

a.	dat	ik	(Peter)	niet	snurkenV	hoor.	snurken is verbal
	that	I	Peter	not	snore	hear
	'that I donʼt hear Peter snore.'

b.	dat	ik	<*Peter)>	geen <*Peter>	snurkenN	hoor.	snurken is nominal
	that	I	Peter	no	snore	hear
	'that I hear no snoring.'

The discussion above has established that the perception verb horen may take a bare infinitival complement clause with an implicit subject. It is doubtful whether verbs like zien'to see' or vinden'to consider' also have this option. The examples in (693), for example, show that leaving the subject of the infinitival complement of zien implicit always gives rise to a degraded result. This suggests that leaving the subject implicit is only possible if the bare infinitive is selected by a verb of sound emission; cf. Petter (1998:145)

693

a.	Ik	zag	??(een gewapende bende)	een bank	beroven.	transitive
	I	saw	an armed gang	a bank	rob
	'I saw an armed gang rob a bank.'

b.		Ik	zag	(*Peter)	acteren.	intransitive
		I	saw	Peter	act

c.		Ik	zag (*een kaars)	doven.	unaccusative
		I	saw a candle	go.out

[+] C. Conclusion

The two previous subsections have established that perception verbs can indeed take bare infinitival clauses as their complement. In fact, this seems to be the only viable analysis for constructions in which the subject of the bare infinitival is expressed by means of an accusative noun phrase—subjects of bare-inf nominalizations are never expressed by means of nominal phrases. If the subject of the bare infinitival is left implicit, on the other hand, it would in principle be possible to analyze the projection of the bare infinitive as a bare-inf nominalization. We investigated such constructions by means of the tests from Table (678) and found such structures to be ambiguous. However, we also saw that the ambiguity arises only with the verb horen'to hear', that is, if the bare infinitive is selected by a verb of sound emission.

[+] IV. The subject of the bare infinitival clause

This subsection discusses the subject of bare infinitival complement clauses in examples such as (694), in which we have marked the infinitival clauses with square brackets and italicized its presumed subject.

694

a.	Jan zag	[Marie/haar	aan haar dissertatie	werken].
	Jan saw	Marie/her	on her dissertation	work
	'Jan saw Marie work on her PhD thesis.'

b.	Marie hoorde	[Peter/hem	in de keuken	werken].
	Marie heard	Peter/him	in the kitchen	work
	'Marie heard Peter work in the kitchen.'

Subsection A begins by showing that the accusative objects in (667) are not internal arguments of the perception verbs but external arguments of the infinitival verbs and thus function as the subject of the embedded infinitival clauses. The fact that these subjects appear with accusative case is normally attributed to the fact that bare infinitival clauses of perception verbs are transparent for case-assignment, as a result of which the perception verbs are able to assign accusative case to them; this will be discussed in Subsection B, subsection C returns to the fact mentioned in Subsection III that under certain conditions the subject of the infinitival clause can be omitted, and we will show that in such cases it can be alternatively expressed by means of an agentive door-phrase.

[+] A. The direct object is not an internal argument of the perception verb

Subsection I claimed that the noun phrases de zon'the sun' and de deur'the door' in the AcI-constructions in the primed examples in (695) are subjects of the infinitival verbs. A first, not very strong, argument in favor of this claim is that these noun phrases also function as the subjects of the verbs opkomen and klapperen'to rattle' in the finite complement clauses in the primeless examples.

695

a.	Marie zag	[dat	de zon	opkwam].
	Marie saw	that	the sun	prt.-rose
	'Marie saw that the sun was rising.'

a'.	Marie zag	[de zon	opkomen].
	Marie saw	the sun	prt.-rise
	'Marie saw the sun rise.'

b.	Jan hoorde	[dat	de deur	klapperde].
	Jan heard	that	the door	rattled
	'Jan heard that the door rattled.'

b'.	Jan hoorde	[de deur klapperen].
	Jan heard	the door rattle
	'Jan heard the door rattle.'

A more conclusive argument is that the finite and infinitival clauses behave in a similar way under pronominalization: the pronoun dat can not only be used to pronominalize the finite clauses in the primeless examples but also the complete bracketed phrase in the primed examples. The fact that the noun phrases de zon and de deur are part of the pronominalized phrases unambiguously shows that they are part of the infinitival clause and are therefore not introduced as internal arguments of the perception verbs. This leaves us with the only option that they function as subjects of the bare infinitival clauses.

696

a.		Marie zag	[dat	de zon	opkwam]	en	Peter	zag	dat	ook.
		Marie saw	that	the sun	prt.-rose	and	Peter	saw	that	too

a'.		Marie zag	[de zon	opkomen]	en	Peter	zag	dat	ook.
		Marie saw	the sun	prt.-rise	and	Peter	saw	that	too

b.		Jan hoorde	[dat	de deur	klapperde]	en	Els hoorde	dat	ook.
		Jan heard	that	the door	rattled	and	Els heard	that	too

b'.		Jan hoorde	[de deur	klapperen]	en	Els hoorde	dat	ook.
		Jan heard	the door	rattle	and	Els heard	that	too

That the accusative noun phrases in AcI-constructions are not internal arguments of the perception verbs is also clear from the fact that they can be pronominalized by means of the weak anaphor zich. The primeless examples in (697) first show that this is never possible if the accusative object is an internal argument of the verb; this is in accordance with the generalization from Section N5.2.1.5, sub III, that the simplex reflexive zich cannot be bound by a co-argument. The coindexing in (697) indicates the intended binding relation.

697

a.		Mariei zag	Peter/zichzelfi/*zichi	(op televisie).
		Marie saw	Peter herself/refl	on television

b.		Jani hoorde	Els/zichzelfi/*zichi	(op de radio).
		Jan heard	Els/himself/refl	on the radio

The examples in (698) show that the simplex reflexive zich is possible in AcI- constructions with perception verbs. Note in passing that the simplex reflexive often can be replaced by the complex reflexive zichzelf without a distinct difference in meaning.

698

a.	Marie ziet	[Peter/zich/zichzelf	in de spiegel	kijken].
	Marie saw	Peter/refl/herself	in the mirror	look
	'Marie saw Peter/herself look in the mirror.'

b.	Jan hoorde	[Els/zich/zichzelf	zingen].
	Jan heard	Els/refl/himself	sing
	'Jan heard Els/himself sing.'

c.	Jan voelde	[zich/?zichzelf	in slaap	sukkelen].
	Jan felt	refl/himself	in sleep	plod
	'Jan felt himself doze off.'

Constructions like (698a&b) do not seem very frequent in speech and may feel somewhat forced, for the simple reason that people tend not to register their own actions by visual or auditory means. Examples such as (698c), on the other hand, are quite common, and the same thing holds for more special infinitival constructions with zien'to see' such as (699) that express an illusory/epistemic reading. Note in passing that in examples like (698c) and (699) the use of weak reflexives seems preferred to the use of complex reflexives.

699

a.	Jan ziet	zich/?zichzelf	binnenkort	naar Londen	gaan.
	Jan sees	refl/himself	soon	to London	go
	'Jan envisages himself going to London soon.'

b.	Jan ziet	zich/?zichzelf	niet	snel	vertrekken.
	Jan sees	refl/himself	not	soon	leave
	'Jan canʼt quite see himself leaving soon.'

The fact that the simplex reflexive is possible in examples like (698) and (699) is consistent with the generalization that simplex reflexive zich cannot be bound by a co-argument if the reflexive functions as the subject of the bare infinitival; it would be highly surprising, however, if it functioned as an internal argument of the perception verbs.

[+] B. Case-marking of the subject of the infinitival clause

Although it is generally assumed that the subject of the infinitival clause is assigned accusative case by the perception verb, this is not easy to establish in Dutch. Of course, it is clear that we are not dealing with nominative case: the form of the pronoun in example (700a) shows that the subject of the infinitival clause is assigned objective case. And that we are dealing with accusative (and not dative) case might be supported by the fact that this case is indeed morphologically expressed in the German counterpart of this example in (700b); cf. Drosdowski (1995:739).

700

a.	Ik	zag	[Jan/hem	dichterbij	komen].	Dutch
	I	saw	Jan/him	closer	come
	'I saw Jan/him come closer.'

b.		Ich	sah	[(den) Johann/ihnacc.	näher	kommen].	German
		I	saw	the Johann/him	closer	come

There is, however, little independent evidence for claiming that the accusative case is assigned by the perception verb. One way of establishing this would be by appealing to passivization: the fact that the accusative subject of the infinitival clause in the English example in (701a) is promoted to subject of the matrix clause in the corresponding passive construction in (701b) can be seen as evidence in favor of "exceptional case marking" of the subject of the infinitival clause by the matrix verb to expect.

701

John expects [Bill/him to read the book].

Bill/Hei was expected [ti to read the book].

This kind of evidence is, however, not available in Dutch AcI-constructions: passivization of such examples is always impossible. The (a)-examples in (702) show this for a construction in which the infinitive is monadic (that is, intransitive or unaccusative), and the (b)-examples for a construction in which the infinitive is transitive; we have also shown for the latter case that varying the position of the object of the embedded infinitive does not affect the acceptability judgments.

702

a.		Jan zag	[Marie/haar	slapen/vertrekken].
		Jan saw	Marie/her	sleep/leave

a'.	*	Marie/Zij	was gezien	slapen/vertrekken.
		Marie/she	was seen	sleep/leave

b.	Jan hoorde	[Marie/haar	een liedje	zingen].
	Jan heard	Marie/her	a song	sing
	'Jan heard Marie/her sing a song.'

b'.	*	Marie/Zij	was	<een liedje>	gehoord <een liedje>	zingen.
		Marie/she	was	a song	heard	sing

It seems quite a robust generalization for Dutch that "intermediate" verbs cannot appear as participles. This is clear from the so-called infinitivus-pro-participio effect that we find in the perfect-tense counterpart of examples such as (703a).

703

a.	Jan wil	je boek	lezen.
	Jan want	your book	read
	'Jan wants to read your book.'

b.	Jan heeft	je boek	willen/*gewild	lezen.
	Jan has	your book	want/wanted	read
	'Jan has wanted to read your book.'

The examples in (704) show, however, that this is probably not the reason for the unacceptability of the primed examples in (702): the result of passivization is also unacceptable if we replace the participles in these examples by infinitives.

704

a.	*	Marie/zij	was zien	slapen/vertrekken.
		Marie/she	was see	sleep/leave

b.	*	Marie/zij	was	<een liedje>	horen <een liedje>	zingen.
		Marie/she	was	a song	hear	sing

The examples in (705) further show that impersonal passivization of constructions in which the subject of the bare infinitival clause is left implicit is also impossible. Note in passing that impersonal examples like dat er snurken werd gehoord'that someone heard snoring' are fully acceptable; this could be used as an additional argument for the claim in Subsection III that examples like dat Jan snurken hoorde'that Jan heard snoring' may involve a bare-inf nominalization.

705

a.	dat	Jan	hoorde	snurken.
	that	Jan	heard	snore
	'that Jan heard snore/snoring.'

a'.	*	dat	er	werd	gehoord	snurken.
		that	there	was	heard	snore

b.	dat	Jan liedjes	hoorde	zingen.
	that	Jan songs	heard	sing
	'that Jan heard singing/songs being sung.'

b'.	*	dat	er	liedjes	werd	gehoord	zingen.
		that	there	songs	was	heard	sing

The unacceptability of the primed examples in (705) shows that the unacceptability of the primed examples in (702) is not related to the promotion of the accusative object to subject, and that this cannot be used as an argument against the standard "exceptional case marking" approach to Dutch AcI-constructions. The unacceptability of passivization of AcI-constructions remains in itself somewhat mysterious; see Bennis & Hoekstra (1989b) for an attempt to account for this.
For completeness' sake, we want to conclude by noting that the primed examples in (702) cannot be saved by substituting te-infinitives for the bare infinitives either. In this respect, Dutch sharply differs from English, which is otherwise similar to Dutch in that it does not allow passivization of the bare infinitival construction; see Burzio (1981:319) and Bennis & Hoekstra (1989b).

706

a.	*	Marie/Zij	was gezien	(te)	slapen/vertrekken.
		Marie/she	was seen	to	sleep/leave

a'.

Marie was seen *(to) sleep/leave.

b.	*	Marie/Zij	was	<een liedje>	gehoord <een liedje>	(te)	zingen.
		Marie/she	was	a song	heard	to	sing

b'.

Marie was heard *(to) sing a song.

The discussion above thus shows that there is no clear-cut evidence that the subject of the bare infinitival clause is assigned case by the perception verb; the main reason for assuming this is that subjects of infinitival clauses normally cannot be assigned case by some element internal to infinitival clauses.

[+] C. Suppression of the embedded subject

Although subjects of infinitival complement clauses of perception verbs can always be realized as nominal phrases, in some cases they do not have to be present. A typical example illustrating this is given in (707a). Since example (707b) shows that the omitted subject can be overtly expressed by means of an agentive door-phrase, De Geest (1972), Bennis & Hoekstra (1989b), and Bennis (2000) argue that non-realization of the subject is the result of a passive-like process. De Geest further supports this proposal by pointing out that (707b) has more or less the same reading as the somewhat awkward morphological passive example in (707c).

707

a.	Ik	hoor	[(Marie)	een liedje	zingen].
	I	hear	Marie	a song	sing
	'I hear (Marie) sing a song.'

b.		Ik	hoor	[een liedje	zingen	(door Marie)].
		I	hear	a song	sing	by Marie

c.	?	Ik	hoor	[een liedje	gezongen	worden].
		I	hear	a song	sung	be

A potential problem with analyses of this sort is that they may lead to the expectation that subjects of infinitival clauses headed by intransitive verbs like klagen'to complain' are also optional given that Dutch allows impersonal passivization: cf. Er werd geklaagd over de kou'People complained about the cold' (lit: there was complained about the cold). Examples like (708a&b) suggest, however, that this expectation is not fulfilled: leaving out the subject of the infinitival clause seems to give rise to a degraded result. It is not very clear what this shows, however, as the morphological passive in (707c) is also unacceptable, as is clear from the fact that a Google search (4/10/2014) on the string [Vover * geklaagd worden], in which V stands for various present- and past-tense forms of horen, did not produce in any results.

708

a.		Ik	hoor	[Marie	over de kou	klagen].
		I	hear	Marie	about the cold	complain

b.	*?	Ik	hoor	[over de kou	klagen	(door Marie)].
		I	hear	about the cold	complain	by Marie

c.	*	Ik	hoor	[over de kou	geklaagd	worden	(door Marie)].
		I	hear	about the cold	complained	be	by Marie

Furthermore, we have seen in Subsection III that the acceptability of omitting the subject also depends on the matrix verb: examples in the literature typically involve the perception verb horen'to hear', and the examples in (709a&b) show that many speakers are less willing to accept similar examples with zien. This would of course be surprising if we were dealing with a productive syntactic process. It may be interesting to note in this connection that the infinitival morphological passive in (709c) is fully acceptable.

709

a.	Ik zag	[??(een gewapende bende)	een bank	beroven].
	I saw	an armed gang	a bank	rob
	'I saw an armed gang rob a bank.'

b.	??	Ik zag	[een bank	beroven	(door een gewapende bende)].
		I saw	a bank	rob	by an armed gang

c.	Ik zag	[een bank	beroofd	worden	(door een gewapende bende)].
	I saw	a bank	robbed	be	by an armed gang
	'I saw a bank being robbed by an armed gang.'

Since the differences noted above have hardly been investigated in the literature so far, it is clear that more research is needed before we can draw any firm conclusions: for example, it is not clear to us to what extent the tendencies noted above are systematic and/or shared by larger groups of speakers.

[+] V. Some additional remarks on perception verbs

This subsection concludes the discussion of the perception verbs with two remarks related to their use in AcI-constructions. Some more remarks on the perception verbs can be found in Section 5.2.3.4, sub VI.

[+] A. Aan het + Infinitive complement?

Haeseryn et al. (1997:1053ff.) note that perception verbs can be complemented by means of the progressive aan het + Vinf phrase. The primeless examples in (710) show that the logical subject of the infinitive is realized in that case as an accusative object. Although Haeseryn et al. do not explicitly analyze the primeless examples as AcI-constructions, they do suggest such an analysis by relating the primeless examples to the primed examples, which clearly are cases of AcI-constructions.

710

a.	We	hoorden	Peter/hem	aan het	rommelen	op zolder.
	we	heard	Peter /him	aan het	mess.about	in the.attic
	'We heard Peter/him rummaging about in the attic.'

a'.	We	hoorden	Peter/hem	rommelen	op zolder.
	we	heard	Peter /him	mess.about	in the.attic
	'We heard Peter/him rummaging about in the attic.'

b.	Ik	zag	Marie/haar	aan het	schoffelen	in de tuin.
	I	saw	Marie/her	aan het	hoe	in the garden
	'I saw Marie/her weeding the garden.'

b'.	Ik zag Marie/haar	schoffelen	in de tuin.
	I saw Marie/her	hoe	in the garden
	'I saw Marie/her weed the garden.'

The primed and primeless examples differ, however, in various ways. First, we notice that the two constructions may markedly differ in word order; in embedded clauses the aan het + Vinf phrase must precede the perception verb in clause-final position, whereas the bare infinitive normally follows it (although it can also precede it if the perception verb is finite, that is, in verb sequences of no more than two verbs).

711

a.		dat	we Peter/hem	<*hoorden>	aan het	rommelen <hoorden>	op zolder.
		that	we Peter /him	heard	aan het	mess.about	in the.attic

a'.		dat	we Peter/hem	< hoorden>	rommelen <hoorden>	op zolder.
		that	we Peter /him	heard	mess.about	in the.attic

b.		dat	ik	Marie/haar	<*zag>	aan het	schoffelen <zag>	in de tuin.
		that	I	Marie/her	saw	aan het	hoe	in the garden

b'.		dat	ik	Marie/haar	<zag>	schoffelen <zag>	in de tuin.
		that	I	Marie/her	saw	hoe	in the garden

Second, the examples in (712) show that while the bare infinitives trigger the IPP-effect in perfect-tense constructions, the aan het + Vinf phrases do not. Note in passing that the bare infinitives rommelen en schoffelen in the primed examples must be last in the clause-final verbal sequences, which confirms that they are verbal.

712

a.	We	hebben	Peter/hem	aan het	rommelen	gehoord/*horen	op zolder.
	we	have	Peter /him	aan het	mess.about	heard/hear	in the.attic
	'Weʼve heard Peter/him rummaging about in the attic.'

a'.	We	hebben	Peter/hem	horen/*gehoord	rommelen	op zolder.
	we	heard	Peter /him	hear/heard	mess.about	in the.attic
	'Weʼve heard Peter/him rummaging about in the attic.'

b.	Ik	heb	Marie/haar	aan het	schoffelen	gezien/*zien	in de tuin.
	I	saw	Marie/her	aan het	hoe	seen/see	in the garden
	'Iʼve seen Marie/her weeding the garden.'

b'.	Ik	heb	Marie/haar	zien/*gezien	schoffelen	in de tuin.
	I	have	Marie/her	see/seen	hoe	in the garden
	'Iʼve seen Marie/her weed the garden.'

The fact that the aan het + Vinf phrases do not trigger the IPP-effect strongly suggests that they are not verbal in nature. This is confirmed by the fact that they must precede the clause-final verbal sequence. Finally, the examples in (713) show that the aan het + Vinf phrases cannot be moved into a more leftward position in the middle field of the clause. This strongly suggests that such phrases function as a complementives, which is in accordance with the findings in the more general discussion of the progressive aan het + Vinf phrase in Section 1.5.3, sub I.

713

a.	Ik	heb	hem	< zojuist>	aan het rommelen <*zojuist>	gehoord	op zolder.
	I	have	him	just.now	aan het mess.about	heard	in the.attic
	'Iʼve just heard him rummaging about in the attic.'

b.	Ik	heb	haar	< zojuist>	aan het	schoffelen	gezien	in de tuin.
	I	saw	her	just.now	aan het	hoe	seen	in the garden
	'Iʼve just seen Marie/her weeding the garden just now.'

[+] B. Nominalization of AcI-constructions

Subsection III has argued that AcI-constructions like Jan hoort kinderen/hen lachen'Jan hears children/them laugh' cannot be analyzed such that the perception verb takes a bare-inf nominalization as its complement because the subject of the input verb (here: kinderen/hen) cannot be realized as a prenominal noun phrase in such nominalizations. What we did not discuss, however, is that the complete AcI-construction can be the input for bare-inf and det-inf nominalization; the singly-primed examples in (714) are cases of the former and the doubly-primed examples are cases of the latter.

714

a.	dat	Jan	[de kinderen	hoort	lachen].
	that	Jan	the children	hears	laugh
	'that Jan hears the children laugh.'

a'.	[Kinderen	horen	lachen]	is altijd	een feest.
	children	hear	laugh	is always	a party
	'Hearing children laugh is always a joy.'

a''.		[Het	horen	lachen	van de kinderen]	is altijd	een feest.
		the	hear	laugh	of the children	is always	a party

b.	dat	Jan	[de kinderen	de dieren	ziet	verzorgen].
	that	Jan	the children	the animals	sees	look.after
	'that Jan sees the children look after the animals.'

b'.	[Kinderen	dieren	zien	verzorgen]	is altijd	een feest.
	children	animals	see	look.after	is always	a party
	'Seeing children look after animals is always a joy.'

b''.		[Het	zien	verzorgen	van de dieren	door de kinderen]	is altijd	een feest.
		the	see	look.after	of the animals	by the children	is always	a party

c.	dat	Jan [de bladeren	ziet	vallen].
	that	Jan the leaves	sees	fall
	'that Jan sees the leaves fall.'

c'.	[Bladeren	zien	vallen]	betekent	dat	de herfst	begint.
	leaves	see	fall	means	that	the autumn	starts
	'Seeing leaves fall is a sure sign that autumn has started.'

c''.		[Het	zien	vallen	van de bladeren]	betekent	dat	de herfst	begint.
		the	see	fall	of the leaves	means	that	the autumn	starts

Examples like these may prove very important in the final analysis of the nominalization process since they show that nominalization involves not only the conversion of a simplex verb into a noun but may in fact take as its input a complex syntactic object, in this case the phrase consisting of the perception verb and the bare infinitive. This, in turn, may favor an approach in which bare-inf and det-infnominalization are seen as processes that apply in syntax given that, under standard assumptions, syntactic objects like verbal complexes are not stored in the lexicon; if so, this disfavors any approach that claims that bare-inf and det-infnominalization are morphological processes that take place in the lexicon. We leave this suggestion for future research.

References:

Bennis, Hans2000Syntaxis van het NederlandsAmsterdamAmsterdam University Press
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Bennis, Hans & Hoekstra, Teun1989Why Kaatje was not heard sing a songJaspers, Danny, Klooster, Wim, Putseys, Yvan & Seuren, Pieter (eds.)Sentential complementation and the lexiconDordrechtForis Publications21-40
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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Accusativus-cum-infinitivoAcI-ConstructionNominalizationAgentiveArgument ClauseBare Infinitival Argument ClauseClauseComplementiveInfinitival Argument ClauseNominalizationPassivePerceptionPronominalizationVerb

Version: 1.0, January 2016

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver	January 2016

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