Participle clauses between adverbial and complement

Abstract

The present paper offers a synchronic and diachronic analysis of integrated participle clauses or IPCs in English, as found in constructions such as the mayor is busy washing his car or many students had trouble finding the correct answer. Typically, IPCs have developed from adverbial participle clauses into complement clauses. Given their adverbial origins, they can occur as complements to predicates that do not normally take nominal direct objects. Synchronically, criteria are discussed for distinguishing IPCs from adverbial clauses, and it is shown that the distinction between IPCs and adverbial participle clauses is non-discrete. Diachronically, the origins of IPCs are traced, showing that IPCs emerged gradually in the course of the Modern English period. It is argued that initially the primary mechanism of change was (analogically-induced) reanalysis, yet at a later stage IPCs began to assert themselves as a category in its own right, spreading to new contexts through analogical extension. Thus, the discussion illustrates how adverbial clauses can turn into complements, and at the same time shows how a new syntactic (if fuzzy) pattern takes shape.

Happy (about) being married, happy (with) being me : le contraste entre participiales et prépositions + gérondives dans la complémentation de happy

“…Dans ce type d'analyses, la présence d'une préposition n'a donc pas de rapport avec la nature de la proposition non finie, qu'elle n'altère pas, mais découle de facteurs extérieurs à la proposition elle-même et à sa valeur. D'autres auteurs choisissent au contraire de s'intéresser aux propriétés des propositions compléments ; c'est le cas par exemple de De Smet (2015). Selon lui, les propositions qui apparaissent sans préposition après l'adjectif peuvent être des participiales compléments de cet adjectif, réanalysées à partir d'un emploi adverbial initial ; il les appelle des IPC (integrated participle clauses).…”

Review of Bouzada-Jabois, Carla. 2021. Nonfinite Supplements in the Recent History of English. Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN: 978-3-034-34226-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b19142

“…De Smet (2015), Bouzada-Jabois analyzes the -ing clauses in ( 8) and ( 9) below as "optional and therefore supplemental" (p. 87):…”

“…Moreover, if one applies the criterion that the author borrows from De Smet (2015) for distinguishing the supplement clauses in ( 8) and ( 9) from the complement integrated participial clause in (10) below, according to which the complement can be identified by the fact that its omission "broadens the semantic scope of the main clause" (p. 89), the two purported supplements would also qualify as complements:…”