Relative temporal deixis

It is often claimed that infinitives express posteriority and that gerunds express anteriority relative to the point in time expressed by the tense of the matrix predicate. Quirk et al.’s (1985) view on the meaning of sentences like (158), (159), and (160) is that -ing complements on retrospective verbs, such as remember and regret, express anteriority and infinitival complements on this subclass of verbs express posteriority. In other words, gerundive complements suggest that the action described in the complement sentence happened before, whereas infinitival complements express that it happened (or will happen) after, the point in time expressed by the tense of the matrix verb. Compare also the following examples (Quirk et al. 1985:1193):

(161) a. I forgot to go to the bank.

b. I forgot (about) going to the bank.

Quirk et al. claim that the meanings corresponding to the examples in (161) are, respectively

(162) a. I forgot that I was to go to the bank, and therefore did not do so.

b. I forgot that I went to the bank/. . . that I should have gone . . .

As regards the contrast in relative temporal deixis between infinitives and gerunds, Wierzbicka (1988) proposes a slightly different account. She claims that infinitives express “futurity” and gerunds express simultaneity or

“sameness of time”.

In Wierzbicka’s theory, contrary to Wood (1956), Bolinger (1968) and Quirk et al. (1985), the elements of thinking, wanting and future are always present in the meaning of volitional infinitival complements. She claims that infinitival clauses imply “future orientation” and “sequence of times,” as opposed to gerundive complements, which imply simultaneity,

“sameness of time,” or “present (contemporary, simultaneous) orientation.”

It is these semantic contrasts, she argues, that are responsible for the gram-matical differences between the (a) and (b) examples in (163–166) below.

(163) a. He tried to fry the mushrooms.

b. He tried frying the mushrooms.

(164) a. I have kept this old jacket to give to a jumble sale.

b. I keep this old jacket for working in the garden.

(165) a. You will need a spanner to tighten that nut.

b. A spanner is used for tightening nuts.

(166) a. John wants to go.

b. * John wants going.

She extends the ‘future orientation versus sameness of time’ semantic contrast to the analysis of causative structures. It is asserted that (167) describes two consecutive actions, whereas the gerundive complement in

(168) refers to an activity that occurred simultaneously with that expressed by the matrix verb.

(167) He got her to do the dishes.

(168) He got them talking.

The same is said to apply to aspectual verbs like begin in (169).

(169) a. He began to open all the cupboards.

b. He began opening all the cupboards.

Duffley and Tremblay (1994) subscribe, in part, to Wierzbicka’s (1988) hypothesis that infinitives are ‘forward-pointing’ complements. It is argued that this semantic property of to-infinitives is derived from their status as PPs introduced by the preposition to, which expresses a ‘before–

after’ relationship between the action expressed by the matrix verb and the event expressed by the complement on the ‘preposition’.³ A gerundive complement, on the other hand, “does not stand in a temporal relation with respect to the main verb at all,” as Duffley and Tremblay (1994:571) argue.

They admit, however, that a gerundive complement on try does express simultaneity (thus supporting Wierzbicka’s (1988) hypothesis), but the

‘sameness of time’ meaning is derived from a semantic shift in the meaning of try from ‘make an effort’ to ‘test, try out’, the latter of which is present every time the verb takes an ordinary NP or a gerund. The argument is that

“in order to test the effect of some action one must necessarily carry this action out,” therefore “the try + -ing construction implies realization of the -ing’s event at the same time as the trying” (cf. Duffley and Tremblay 1994:572).

Duffley and Tremblay (1994) argue that the ‘performance’ compo-nent of the potentiality–performance hypothesis is untenable since neither of its standard claims is borne out empirically. Examples like

(170) All the journalists tried to make friends with him; all succeeded; but they found him disappointing as a news source.

3For discussion and criticism of the proposal that ^to-infinitives are PPs see section 1.2 above.

show that infinitival complements do not imply that the event expressed in the complement is/was not performed. And sentences like

(171) a. He postponed calling a meeting as long as he could.

b. She is considering buying a car.

show that gerundive complements do not imply the performance of the action described in the complement (cf. Duffley and Tremblay 1994:568).

As regards the idea that infinitives express potentiality, Duffley and Tremblay adopt the weaker claim that an infinitive leaves open the question of whether or not the action it describes is/was/has been performed, and they derive this meaning of infinitives from their status as PPs, and from their adverbial function. Rather than recapitulate the arguments which refute the PP-adverbial hypothesis of infinitives,⁴ I will point out one more defect in Duffley and Tremblay’s (1994) argumentation.

Their discussion focuses on the following ‘verbs of effort’: try, attempt, struggle, strive, labor, and endeavor. They extend their analysis of complements on try to sentences like the following:

(172) a. He struggled desperately to understand why I should know his name.

b. The men and the women of the play strive wholeheartedly to fulfill this duty.

c. She labored mightily not to sound too eager.

d. Pozzati and I endeavored earnestly to record our impressions without the prejudice that the anxiety of our time so easily provokes.

They point out in connection with these examples that “none of the four verbs . . . can be used with a noun direct object, conclusive evidence that the infinitive is not direct object in these constructions” (Duffley and Tremblay 1994:573). This observation, however, which is intended as a major argument, ruthlessly backfires: not only do these verbs not take NP objects, but, with the exception of endeavor (and perhaps strive), none even subcategorizes for a complement at all. This means that the infinitives that occur with struggle and labor are adjuncts, which further means that these verbs are simply irrelevant to the discussion.

4 See section 1.2 above.