A contradiction between form and function: the specificity of infinitives in selected valency positions
Abstract
Although the Czech language has two forms of infinitive (active and passive) in its morphological paradigm, infinitive constructions can be found where this opposition is not employed and the active vs. passive interpretation depends on the context. This article focuses on active infinitives which convey meanings primary expressed by passive infinitives.
The verbs which govern such infinitives are divided into several classes: (a) potřebovat "to need", zasluhovat "to deserve", (b) verbs of movement, such as poslat "to send", přinést "to bring", odvézt "to take away", (c) žádat "to require", odmítat "to refuse". The competition between the active forms of the infinitive and the analytic passive forms, coreference between the valency members of the governing verbs and the hidden valency member of the infinitive are analyzed.
Quantitative insights into how the phenomenon under study is represented in the Czech National Corpus are provided. The article concludes with a terminological proposal to complete the system of functions in the domain of infinitive constructions.