Grammarians attribute the choice between the infinitive and the gerund in English to
syntactic and semantic criteria. The aim of this paper is to argue that the choice between
these two forms is best attributed to pragmatic criteria. Results from the analyses of
contexts allowing the infinitive only, contexts allowing the gerund only, and contexts
allowing both the infinitive and the gerund show that the selection between the infinitive
and the gerund in English depends on pragmatic criteria such as felicity conditions of
speech acts, context, reference, and presupposition. Furthermore, the selection between
the infinitive and the gerund after certain verbs determines the illocutionary force of the
utterance in which one of the two forms is used.
تاريخ النشر
07/02/2007
الناشر
Journal of Al-Anbar University for Humanities Sciences
الكلمات المفتاحية
English Syntax, Infinitives and Gerunds, Speech Acts
عناد مطلب ساير | Inaad M Sayer | 1132