Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the variation between two competing structures--on the one hand, a transitive verb that takes a finite nominal clause as its complement, and on the other hand, a transitive verb that takes an infinitive as its complement. This thesis seeks to address three questions: (1) Which semantic categories are more likely to use coreferential nominal clauses as complements? (2) How do coreferential finite nominal clauses compare with coreferential infinitive complements, in terms of frequency of usage? And (3) do the corpora show any variation among different countries? The corpora CREA and Web/Dialects were used to determine the frequency of usage between these two structures with four different semantic categories of verbs used in the main clause: assertive, dubitative, evaluative, and volitive. The U.S., Spain, Argentina, and Mexico were also used to compare the results by country. The findings show that when the main verb is assertive the use of a subordinate clause is favored, while main clauses with dubitative showed mixed results between the corpora, although Web/Dialects showed that dubitatives favor an infinitive complement. The evaluative verbs lamentar and odiar did not produce any coreferential results with direct object nominal clauses. Volitive verbs never accepted the use of a coreferential finite. The Web/Dialects results indicate that Spain and the U.S were more likely than Argentina and Mexico to use the finite construction after a main clause with a dubitative phrase, while still favoring the infinitive complement.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Humanities; Spanish and Portuguese

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2022-04-18

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd12766

Keywords

coreference, finite verbs, infinitive complement, corpus linguistics, verb mood, regional variation

Language

english

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