Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Csaba Ceglédi: On the Constituent Structure of Infinitives and Gerunds in English

82 CSABA CZEGLÉDI As I have already suggested above, certain distributional properties of infinidves (and some -ing participles) also point to their sentential status. It is noted in Chomsky and Lasnik 1977 that infinitives pattern with finite clauses in that they occur as restrictive relatives: (20) a. I found a poem to memorize. b. I thought up a topic for you to work on. c. I found a topic on which to write my term paper. d. There is a man to fix the sink at the front door. e. If you find anyone to fix the sink, let me know. As the following sentences show, -ing participles also pattern with finite clauses in that they occur as restrictive relatives in noun phrases: (21) a. I found a sentence requiring careful analysis. b. There is a man selling cherries at the front door. c. If you find anyone carrying a large umbrella, call me. Such participial relatives are more restricted in occurrence than their infinitival counterparts. Participial relatives occur only with a null subject which is always coreferential with the noun phrase which they modify. So the participial counterparts of (20a—c) do not exist: (22) a. *I found a poem memorizing. b. *I thought up a topic you working on. c. *I found a topic on which writing my term paper. 2.7 Topicalization As Köster and May (1982:129), in agreement with Jackendoff (1977), observe, sentences may be topicalized under certain restrictions, but VPs may never undergo topicalization: (23) a. That you were coming tomorrow, no one ever expected Bill to find out. b. *Coming tomorrow, no one ever expected Bill to find out that you were. Similarly, clauses but not VPs may occur in subject position, which clearly shows that the infinitives and gerund below are all clauses: