Back to results

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

English Goal Infinitives

Abstract

dc:description

Apparent restrictions on the kinds of phrases to which goal infinitives can adjoin, as well as the identification of the referents of unexpressed arguments, follow from what it means to be a particular type of goal, and therefore need not be stipulated. Knowledge of goal relations is part of the encyclopedic knowledge that language users acquire through observation of situations. Given that the grammar represents a speaker's knowledge of a language, an analysis in which constraints on modified phrases and interpretations of implicit arguments are not stipulated, but rather follow from independently necessary information, is preferable to one that stipulates those constraints. If the grammar can account for the distribution and interpretation of goal infinitives without constraints specific to the construction, then it is possible to assume that speakers' representation of their language is that much simpler, and presumably that much easier to acquire.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Linguistics
Grantor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Year dc:date
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Baxter, David Paul
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Green, Georgia M.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

Language dc:language
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
(MiAaPQ)AAI9921660
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82682

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Baxter, David Paul. English Goal Infinitives. Dissertation thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/82682