Catenatives or complex VP - the debate about specific verbs in English

Scholarly Paper (Advanced Seminar) aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Linguistik, einseitig bedruckt, Note: 1, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Veranstaltung: Problems of English Grammar, 14 Eintragungen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Englisch, Anmerkungen: This paper deals with a spercial class of English verbs: the catenatives and what distinguishes them from, say, modals or auxiliaries. Different views of how co define verbs along these classes (or even wheter these definitions are at all fesible). The concept of graded progression from the auxiliary over modals, modifiers, so-called operators and quasi-modals to the catenative is explored. The difference between simple and complex catenative verbs is explored, all with extensive examples. , Abstract: Most linguists agree that there is a particular feature of certain verbs like e.g.want, begin, try or seem that sets them apart from other verbs: their ability to becombined into chains of verbs, to 'catenate' (Lat. catena: chain).(1) I don't want to have to be forced to begin to try to make more money. (Palmer1987: 172)The term usually used for these verbs is 'catenative verbs'. There remainssome form of disagreement about almost every aspect of these verbs, however,ranging from the question which verbs actually are catenative, to the problem ofhow to analyse or categorise them. Some linguists even question the need todefine a class of catenative verbs in the first place. Huddleston concedes that:"This is one of the most difficult areas of English grammar and despite a great dealof intensive study over the last twenty years there remains much disagreement overthe most basic aspects of the analysis."(Huddleston 1997: 209)The treatment of the grammatical phenomena is further complicated by thefact that linguists tend to introduce their own categories or descriptions forexisting categories. This is particularly evident in the argument of modals vs.auxiliaries vs. operators.An approach differing from that traditionally taken by grammarians is thatpresented by Dieter Mindt who bases his observations on the analysis of a corpusof actual language.This paper gives an overview of the theories concerning catenativeverbs, their relation to the auxiliaries and their features of clausecomplementation. Due to the scope of work that has been published, only themain approaches will be considered. The field of semantics in particular wouldmerit a much closer look on the effects of sentence taxis.