초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The purpose of this paper is to verify the hypothesis of the Great Complement Shift (GCS), according to which infinitival complement is being replaced by prepositional gerund over time. The advance of the to plus gerund (to-gerund) is considered to be the most prominent pattern of GCS (Rudanko 2010, etc.). On the basis of the Corpus of Historical American English, this paper examines the frequency changes from the 1820s to the 2000s involving eight predicates expected to have undergone GCS. It turns out that object and confine have completed the change in the early twentieth century and only to-gerund is used now. The predicates consent, prone and look forward have partially undergone GCS: among them look forward is in the front line and to-gerund overtook to-infinitive in the 1850s and have since spread rapidly; with consent and prone, to-infinitive is still used more frequently but to-gerund is increasing and to-infinitive is slightly decreasing over time. The verbs agree, assent and aspire differ from the others in that to-infinitive has not decreased at all. Since to-gerund is slightly increasing with these verbs, GCS is still justified but not at the expense of to-infinitive.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
to-infinitive, gerund, complement, corpus, COHA, diachronic change
