English
Kristina Schmelzer
The Grammaticalization of the English
to-infinitive
Seminar paper
Proseminararbeit
Institut für Anglistik der RWTH Aachen
Anglistische Sprachwissenschaften
Thema:
The grammaticalization of the English to-infinitive
für das Proseminar:
Grammaticalization
WS 2011/12
Von: Kristina Schmelzer
Im Rahmen des “English Studies“ Studienganges
Aachen, den 24.2.2012
Table of contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
2.1. Haspelmath: From purposive to infinitive ............................................... 2
2.2. Haspelmath: A universal path of grammaticalization .............................. 4
2.3. The parameters of grammaticalization .................................................... 4
3. Fischer: English compared to German and Dutch ....................................... 7
3.2. Fischer: Why is English different? .......................................................... 10
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................ 11
5. Works Cited .............................................................................................. 13
1. Introduction
Grammaticalization means the transition of a lexical, autonomous form to a grammatical,
dependent form. It is a process in which syntactic structures develop out of free discourse
structures and that extends over long time periods (cf. Diewald 1997: 11).
Hardly any phenomenon of linguistics has raised as many questions as the grammaticalization of the infinitive. The English language differentiates between two infinitive types: The
bare infinitive, which is only left in certain constructions, is sometimes described as “a sort
of grammatical fossil” (Curme 1931: 456, quoted in Duffley 1992: 12) and the toinfinitive, on the other hand, demonstrates the widely-used form of the infinitive1.
Haspelmath (1989: 287) gives a glimpse into the prevalent view, that “the [to-] infinitive is
the basic and unmarked form of the verb”, which “carries no meaning of its own”. The
influential linguist Roman Jakobson states the definition as follows:
Among all verbal forms, it is the infinitive which carries the minimal grammatical information. It says nothing either about the participants of the narrated event or about the relation
of this event to other narrated events and to the speech event. (Jakobson 1957: 142; quoted in
Haspelmath 1989: 287)
Chomsky (1957:100) hypothesizes even more radically by saying that to is a morpheme
that “can hardly be said to have a meaning in any independent sense” at all. However, there
are different approaches and opinions about the grammaticalization of the to-infinitive and
its status within linguistics.
In his article “From purposive to infinitive – a universal path of grammaticization”, published in 1989 via Folia Linguistica Historica, Martin Haspelmath questions the traditional
definition of the infinitive. Using the German infinitive development as an example, he
demonstrates the infinitival evolution ranging from the Old English/Old German periods to
the current use of language. He states that the infinitives occurring in most languages actually “do have a meaning and also a form of their own” (Haspelmath 1989: 288), and that
the grammaticalization process, which the infinitives underwent, follows a universal path.
As a reaction to this, Olga Fischer published her article “The grammaticalisation of infinitival to in English compared with German and Dutch” in 1997. Functioning as an annotation to Haspelmath’s theses, she illustrates her view of the infinitival grammaticalization,
taking the German and Dutch infinitives as an example.
1
There are discussions between certain linguists concerning the distinction of bare infinitive and toinfinitive. As this paper only deals with the grammaticalization of the to-infinitive, I will not concentrate on
these hypotheses in detail.
1