Abstract

The goal of this study is to provide a fine-grained, language-specific analysis of constructions involving the to-infinitive and the –ing as complements of verbs denoting the three cardinal moments of an event. The unsatisfactory character of approaches based on the abstract category of ‘aspect’ is shown, as such analyses assume the semantic categories of English to be adequately defined in terms of pre-established logical notions which are basically the same for all languages. The approach taken here, on the contrary, attempts to reconstruct the semantics, based on the capacity of the linguistic sign to evoke certain messages in context. Three basic parameters are utilized to offer a language-specific explanation of the facts of English usage: (1) the semantics of the complement form; (2) the function of the complement in the sentence; (3) the lexical content of the matrix. The ability of the approach adopted to explain the data left unaccounted for by other approaches (such as the fact start to can be used both when the complement’s event was initiated and when it was not) indicates the fruitfulness of taking a new angle on the problem.

The Use of the Infinitive and the -Ing after Verbs
Denoting the Beginning, Middle and End of an Event

Patrick J. Duffley

1.	Introduction

The circumlocutory character of the title of this article, though it may be inelegant, is not without purpose. It is an attempt to avoid an assumption underlying much of the work which has been done on the verbs which will be discussed here. This assumption is connected to terms like “aspect” and “aspectualizer”, which are often used to refer to the verbs start, begin, continue, keep, stop, finish, quit, cease and end (cf. Newmeyer 1975, Boertian 1979, Dowty 1979, Freed 1979, Brinton 1988, Bailey 1992). It consists in taking for granted that the semantics of these verbs is defined in terms of universal notional distinctions corresponding to some abstract category of “aspect”. Aspect categories are consequently not to be established on the basis of the formal markers existing in a certain language, but rather on the basis of such purely notional distinctions. Thus Brinton (1988: 53) sees the “imperfective continuative” as having the “formal markers” continue to V/Ving and keep on V-ing in English, the “ingressive phase” is marked formally by start or begin to V/Ving, and the “egressive phase” by stop/finish V-ing, cease to V/V-ing. While this sort of approach provides a convenient tool for classifying the data and for making cross-linguistic comparisons, it has the unfortunate consequence of giving the analyst the impression that he/she knows all about the semantics of the constructions in question, when in actual fact it is the semantic content evoked by the linguistic sign which the analytical efforts of the linguist must first of all endeavour to uncover. This explains perhaps why a good number of questions concerning the behaviour of these verbs in English remain unanswered. These questions touch on issues such as:

Why are verbs referring to the beginning of an event construed with either the infinitive or the -ing but those referring to the end only with the -ing?

Why is cease the only exception to this tendency?

c)	Why can start to V be used both in cases where the event was or was not initiated, whereas begin to V always implies initiation?

Why is continue construed with both the infinitive and the -ing but keep only with the latter?

If the -ing complement is an expression of “imperfective aspect”, how can it be used in a case like All of a sudden he stopped liking his job where liking seems state-like?

Such questions obviously call for a more fine-grained and language-specific analysis of the semantics of the verbs and complement forms found in these constructions. This paper will be an attempt to bring to light as much as possible of the texture of the semantics hidden behind the constructions start, begin, continue, stop, cease, etc. plus infinitive or ing, starting from as minimal assumptions as possible concerning this semantic content.

2.	Auxiliary Status of the Verbs under Study

There has been a great deal of discussion among scholars over the question of whether the so-called aspectual verbs or aspectualizers are auxiliaries or not. Much of this is due to disagreements over what an auxiliary is, a question which, according to one author (Heine 1993: 26), is no closer to being resolved now than it was thirty years ago. Traditional accounts look at things from the point of view of the semantic subordination of one verb to another. Although most traditional grammarians treat ‘aspectualizers’ as main verbs, a certain number of them assign these verbs some sort of intermediate status (cf. Visser 1969, 1973; Poutsma 1926: 297; Curme 1931: 27). Kruisinga is a good illustration of the hesitations felt with respect to these verbs: he first draws a distinction between forms which are completely subordinated to another verb (auxiliaries) and those which are subordinated but still have “an independent meaning of their own” (1931: 222), among which he places the aspectual verbs; however, he then confuses the issue by calling the latter “auxiliaries” (p. 224).

Transformational studies generally treat the aspectualizers as full verbs taking sentential complements of the form to V or V-ing (cf. Freed 1979: 144), the disagreements coming over the functional role played by the complement clause, i.e. whether it is a case of NP or of VP complementation. Emonds (1976: 133) argues that aspectual verbs are followed by VP complements, based on the fact that they do not freely passivize (1) nor form pseudo-cleft constructions (2):

* To cook dinner was begun by John.

? What John began was to cook dinner.

Perlmutter (1970: 113), followed by Huddleston (1976: 365-366) with some nuances, argues that begin takes an NP as complement since simple nouns may be used in this function and since object deletion may occur.

Brinton (1988: 75) represents a return to the primacy of the semantic subordination criterion: because aspectualizers function as a single semantic unit with the following verb and express no independent lexical meaning, they are classified as auxiliaries. This is true whether one adopts a “semantic and universal definition” of auxiliaries, such as Steele's (1978) AUX (a surface unite separate from the main verb which contains at least modality or tense or aspect and which does not subordinate to the main verb), or a functional definition of auxiliary as a clausal operator operating over a propositional structure, as in Foley and Van Valin (1984: 208-224). As evidence for the absence of independent lexical content, Brinton refers to the phenomenon of transparency, illustrated in (3b) below, where the verb ask “skips over” the aspectualizer begin to impose selectional restrictions on the second infinitive, whereas try in (3c) is not skipped over. A second criterion used is active/passive synonymy (cf. 4).

(3)	a.	Ask him to begin to listen.

b.	*Ask him to begin to hear.

c.	Ask him to try to hear.

(4)	a.	John began to address the crowd.

b.	= The crowd began to be addressed by John.

c.	John tried to address the crowd.

d.	The crowd tried to be addressed by John.

No position will be taken here on whether the aspectualizers should be called “auxiliaries” or not since this term cannot be satisfactorily defined. What will be objected to however is the type of semantic analysis to which the use of the term “auxiliary” leads.

3.	Semantic Analyses as Aspectual Auxiliaries

Viewing start, continue, stop and company as auxiliaries corresponds to a view of language in which the meaning of linguistic units is treated as being adequately definable in logical or relational terms alone. There are a number of analyses based on this view in the literature, the earliest being von Wright's (1963) change-of-state calculus, which uses a dyadic operator T, whose logical value corresponds to the notion of ‘and then’ / ‘and next’. This allows logical formula to be written for ingressive, egressive and continuative aspectual values:

Ingressive	pTp	‘not p and then p’

Egressive	pTp	‘p and then not p’

Continuative	pTp	‘p and then p’

Anderson (1968) uses a very similar approach, while Dowty (1979) offers a notational variant of the change-of-state calculus in which aspectual expressions are analysed as single atomic predicates or combinations thereof in logical structure. Thus pTp can be represented by the predicate become, pTp by end and pTp by remain. The predicate become is then used to characterize the meaning of inchoatives like begin and start.

Other analyses have approached the problem from the point of view of presuppositions and entailments. Newmeyer (1975) classifies aspectual expressions in terms of factivity, i.e. whether they presuppose the truth of the complement, a property which is verified by seeing whether the truth of the complement's proposition is maintained under negation. By this analysis, the verbs stop, finish, resume and continue are factive, while begin and start are not. Keep is factive with point-time adverbials and non-factive with durative adverbials. Givón (1972, 1973) modifies the conventional view expressed by Newmeyer in two respects. First of all he says that in order to characterize the meaning of the aspectual verbs adequately one must take into account not only presuppositions but also implications. Secondly, he claims that for 'time-axis' verbs such as the aspectualizers, presuppositions refer to the time-span preceding the time of the action and implications to the time-span following it. With these parameters, the following classification is proposed:

a)	begin, start, continue, resume and repeat are implicative verbs, as they imply realization of the event subsequent to the point in time corresponding to the aspectual

finish, stop, complete and end are negative-implicative in that they negate further occurrence of an event

begin and start have a negative presupposition, while all the others have positive presuppositions.

Freed (1979: 4) adopts pragmatic rather than formal or logical definitions of presupposition (information which is prior knowledge shared by speaker and hearer) and “consequence” (information which is conveyed by the speaker and learned by the hearer). For the aspectualizers, presupposition refers to the prior initiation of an event, consequence to its subsequent occurrence. Freed’s findings differ only slightly from Givón’s. She points out for instance (p. 157) that some uses of start + to V imply non-occurrence of the event, as in:

He started to say something, but thought better of it.

Stop is treated as permitting the possibility of resumption, whereas all the other egressives mark a definite end (pp. 110, 129, 138-140). Regarding the verb keep, it is argued that it may or may not presuppose prior initiation (pp. 90-91). For Freed, aspectualizers take “events” as complements rather than propositions or objects. Events are segmentable into three different stages – onset, nucleus and coda – which are named by aspectualizers. Based on the fact that one can start to do something and not do it, but one cannot begin to do something without doing it, start is argued to name the onset of an event, while begin evokes the initial segment of the nucleus (pp. 71, 132). Finish and complete are said to refer to the coda of an event, while end refers to the last temporal segment of the nucleus (pp. 129, 138, 142).

Brinton (1988: 81) clearly adopts the position that “aspectualizers in English meet the semantic criterion for auxiliary membership and…, like auxiliaries, they are definable without recourse to lexical notions.” In her classification they are placed on the same footing as the progressive construction and the simple form of the verb as markers of aspectual categories (pp. 52-53). Thus the “imperfective” has the formal marker be V-ing, the “imperfective continuative” has the formal markers continue to V / V-ing and keep on V -ing, the “ingressive phase” is marked by the forms start or begin to V / V ing, the “egressive phase” by stop, cease, finish V ing and the “perfective” is marked formally by the simple form of the verb.

Ter Meulen (1988) represents the most formal of the approaches to the semantics of English aspectualizers. In this approach the theory of generalized quantifiers is used to explain the semantic properties characteristic of these verbs.1 The aspectual verbs themselves are viewed as “generalized quantifiers, relating a contextually determined reference-time to an event-type corresponding to the complement” (p. 477). This leads to an attempt to situate them on the logical square of opposition of generalized quantifiers, with start being placed on the corner of the existential, continue on that of the universal, finish on that of the internal negation of the existential, and not start on the corner corresponding to the external negation of the existential (p. 481). Thus for start time is scanned until the first positive instance of the event is found, whereas for finish the scanning checks for the first negative instance (i.e. the start of the non-existence of the event); continue denotes the notion of not starting the non-existence of the event (i.e. the notion resulting from the application of both external and internal negation to start).

4.	Problems Posed by this Type of Analysis

Treating the aspectual verbs as auxiliaries whose meaning can be described in purely relational terms leads to a number of problems. The main one is the reduction of the meaning of these verbs to abstract universal categories, often of a formal-logical nature. This is based on the assumption that the semantics of natural language can be handled as an exponent of some type of formal semantics. The effect of such an assumption is generally to force the data into preconceived molds. Ultimately, this implies a view of language in which the semantic categories of all languages are basically the same and it is only the way the formal markers match up with the semantics which varies.

In the case at hand, this approach leads to numerous distortions of the data, a problem which becomes even more acute since none of the authors writing on this question has used a corpus of naturally-occurring utterances. Ter Meulen (1988: 479), for instance, gives as acceptable the highly unusual (7), and bases the claim that start is an indefinite existential on this piece of “English data”:

?? There started a reading of a novel.

She argues furthermore (p. 482) that infinitives are “event-types where the aspectual verb quantifies over distinct occasions, gerunds are events where the aspectual verb quantifies over stages of one and the same event,” a claim which is not supported by usage at all:

All of a sudden she started to run towards the car. (single occurrence)

He started smoking when he was only 13. (habit)

One is also left sceptical as to the psychological plausibly of the definition of ending an event (p. 484): “you end an event, by first starting it, then non-starting the negative counterpart, which is equivalent to keeping the positive event going on, and then you end it.” Where this approach really breaks down however is in the treatment of the verbs on the back wall of the aspectual cube: resume, stop, end/cease/terminate and keep. Stop is defined in terms of the “existential” resume as the internal negation thereof, i.e. ‘to resume the non-existence of an event’; however, one can perfectly well stop doing something which one has not stopped or interrupted doing at some previous moment, as in the following attested use of stop from the Brown University Corpus:

Hughes said Monday, “It is the apparent intention of the Republican Party to campaign on the carcass of what they call the Eisenhower Republicanism, but the heart stopped beating and the lifeblood congealed after Eisenhower retired.”

(Brown U. Corpus A06 0100)

End/cease/terminate are defined as the external negation of resume, i.e. ‘to not resume the event’. This would presuppose that one is not performing the event at the point of cessation, a claim which is not borne out by actual usage either:

The marine commended to weep and it blighted the sense of enjoyment. Matsuo stood up. (…) The marine, hands on cheeks, rolled by his unwounded side onto his stomach. He ceased weeping.

(Brown U. Corpus N25 1350)

Lastly, keep is defined as the external negation of the internal negation of resume, i.e. ‘to not resume the nonexistence of the event’. This would imply that the agent had stopped doing the action before the reference-point and that he/she did not go back to not doing it. Once again, this fails to correspond to real usage, as She kept right on walking does not mean that she had stopped walking before but refused to stop again at the later point in time evoked by kept. Although it may be true that any transition through the logical square proposed for the aspectual verbs represents a “valid inference”, the validity of redefining the meanings of these verbs in terms of purely logical oppositions appears very questionable.

Less formal approaches like those of Freed and Brinton are more congenial to the data, but still involve important distortions of the facts of usage. Freed (1979: 152-156) holds for instance that the to V complement produces a generic (or serial) reading, whereas V ing presents an event as durative (or sometimes iterative). Like Palmer (1974: 171), she explicitly equates the V ing complement with the progressive construction, both being categorized as “imperfectivizing operators” expressing durative aspect (1979: 7273). As seen in (8) and (9) above however, the to-infinitive can be used in reference to a single event, and the ing can refer to something habitual (=generic in Freed’s classification). Brinton (1988: 92-93) corrects Freed’s view that to V is used to denote states because the latter are generally considered to be generics, arguing that:

In English, states and habits are generally viewed perfectively, and the simple form is used. Thus, in aspectualizer-complement structures, the equivalent of the simple form, the to V form, is used.

However, she then goes on to make the false claim that the same shift from the notion of habit in the simple form to that of ongoing single event in the progressive (12a, b) also occurs in complement structures with the ing (13a, b):

(12)	a.	Mary walks to work.

b.	Mary is walking to work.

(13)	a.	Mary began to walk to work.

b.	Mary began walking to work. (= on a particular occasion)

It is quite possible however to say something like (14):

Mary began walking to work after she had a bad accident with her car.

Moreover, the gerundive ing can be used as complement of an aspectual verb to evoke a state, as in the following attested occurrence:

That was how they started being friends.

(Brown U. Corpus P16 0990)

Analyses in terms of factivity and implications pose other types of problems. In Newmeyer’s classification of aspectual verbs according to the factivity parameter, the verb keep is found in both the factive (with a point-time adverbial) and the non-factive category (with a durative adverbial). The ing and the infinitive can also be both factive (16a, b) and non-factive (17a, b):

(16)	a.	It continued to rain.

b.	It stopped raining.

(17)	a.	It started to rain.

b.	It started raining.

This shows that factivity is a purely logical category which has no stable correlation with the linguistic sign in this area of English usage. The same can be said for Givón’s notion of implication, which requires treating some uses of start to V as “implicative” and other as “neg-implicative”.

The shortcomings of a truth-conditional-type approach to the verbs begin and start have also been pointed out by Tobin (1993: 189). Quoting Contini-Morava (1989: 181), he pleads in favour of the need to “come to grips with the meanings of individual linguistic signs” by means of a “sign-oriented approach based on the concept of invariant meaning.” Unfortunately, the invariant meanings proposed by Tobin are defined a priori in terms of markedness theory, with start being treated as “marked” for “result”, whereas begin is “unmarked”, i.e. it can denote either “process” or “result” (both of these two verbs are said to share the semantic common denominator of referring to an inceptive event). Thus although Tobin’s approach is non-formalist, the semantic content of the aspectual verbs is still defined by the theory and not by observation of usage. This leads to a skewing of the data in favour of the punctual, resultative uses of start and a disregarding of the use of start in the progressive construction, where it does not produce this type of impression: all of the examples given of start are in the simple form of the verb, which, as has been shown by numerous studies (cf. Hirtle 1967 and Brinton 1988 among others), has a perfective aspectual value which has not been neutralized in Tobin’s analysis by comparing both begin and start to one another in the progressive construction. In addition, usage of start with adverbs such as gradually has not been taken into account; cf. the attested uses in (18) and (19) below:

But now it’s gradually starting to improve again, and we’re hoping that this will continue.

(B.N. Corpus K2W 600)

Diarrhoea due to food sensitivity can come on suddenly and acutely, or it may start gradually and slowly get worse.

(B.N. Corpus BMI 1418)

If this verb was marked for a resultative value, it should not be compatible with such contexts.

Thus while many valid observations have been made about the verbs under study in this paper, there is a real need for a less aprioristic approach to the verbs referring to the cardinal moments of an event in English, an approach which does not assume knowledge of the semantics but seeks rather to discover the latter as it is revealed by the linguistic sign’s use in context to evoke a message. Rather than reducing the data to what can be handled by the tools of analysis chosen by the researcher, this approach is based on as extensive an observation as possible of usage in the language under study. In addition, it attempts to dissect the phenomenon into its natural components, to respect the articulations of the language in question, which – in spite of the fact that all languages allow their speakers to do fundamentally the same thing, viz. to express their experience – may be quite different from one language to another.

5.	A Language-specific Approach to ‘Aspectualizers’ in English

5.1 The Parameters of Analysis

The analysis of English verbs referring to the beginning, middle and end of events proposed here will utilize three parameters: (1) the semantics of the complement form, i.e. to-infinitive vs. ing; (2) the semantics of the complement’s function with respect to the main verb; (3) the lexical content of the matrix verb. These factors will be defined independently of the constructions under consideration here and then applied to aspectual complement structures.

5.1.1	The Semantics of the Complement

The ing form is often treated as if its semantic content in all of its uses was the same as that found in the progressive construction (cf. Wierzbicka 1988: 69, Langacker 1991: 445). Palmer (1974: 171) and Freed (1979: 72-73) have been quoted above as applying this analysis to the aspectual verbs, calling the ing complement an imperfectivizing operator. This definition of the ing’s semantic value does not cover gerundive complement uses such as (20) below, however, where the complement is already realized at the point in time corresponding to the matrix verb’s event:

I remember filing that article somewhere in the top drawer of my filing-cabinet.

Here the ing’s event is necessarily evoked as a whole, i.e. perfectively and not imperfectively. Two realizations in discourse of the ing’s potential must consequently be distinguished (cf. Duffley 1995). In the progressive construction, the interiority of the ing’s event is attributed to the subject of the auxiliary be at the point in time denoted by the auxiliary, a semantic configuration which involves the introduction into the event of a dividing-point separating the event into an accomplished and a yet to be accomplished portion and giving rise to the effect of imperfectivity (cf. Duffley 1995: 9). In a use such as (20) above, on the other hand, the interiority of the ing’s event is simply taken as a whole, as the totality of positions contained between its beginning and its end-points (Duffley 1995: 10). The contrast between these two realizations of the ing can be seen in the compatibility of the gerundive ing with the preposition after, as compared to the progressive construction’s incompatibility with this conjunction:

After reading all his e-mail, he got down to work.

*After he was reading all his e-mail, he got down to work.

The gerundive realization of the ing resembles a verbal noun; the participial realization can be compared to a verbal adjective.

As for the to-infinitive complement, its semantic content is more complex, as it is composed of two words – the preposition to and the infinitival form of the verb. That the preposition makes a semantic contribution to the semantics of the complement can be seen by comparing pairs such as:

(23)	a.	I had dozens of people to help me.

b	I had dozens of people help me.

The role of to is to represent the infinitive’s event as the end-point of a movement (cf. Duffley 1992: 1617), so that, according to whether the movement is understood to be carried out or not, the effect produced is either that of futurity as in (23a) above or that of resultant actualization, as in (24):

I got dozens of people to help me.

The bare infinitive itself evokes a perfective or holistic image of its event as being the end-point of the movement signified by to. Thus in (24) above one understands that the helping was completely actualized in time, and in prospective uses such as (23a) the meaning conveyed is that it is all of the action which is in prospect.

5.1.2 The Function of the Complement

5.1.2.1 The Function of the –ing Form

In its role as complement of transitive verbs, the ing form generally has the function of direct object of the main verb. This is clearly the case with a verb such as enjoy, where the event denoted by the gerundive complement corresponds semantically to ‘that which is/was enjoyed’. Various syntactic criteria corroborate this analysis of its function. Passive constructions promoting the gerund to subject are quite possible:

(25)	a.	Everyone enjoyed basking on the beach in the warm summer sun.

b.	Basking on the beach in the warm summer sun was enjoyed by all.

Pseudo-cleft structures are also found:

What we enjoyed most was basking on the beach in the warm summer sun.

In addition, it is generally possible to make anaphoric reference to the ing by means of the pronoun that or it, as in:

Yes, everyone really enjoyed that.

In some cases, however, the ing can be used to complement another verb in the adjectival function of predicate complement. Thus in (28) below, the –ing does not denote ‘that which is/was lain’ but rather an attribute which applies to the subject of the matrix verb during the lying:

He lay panting on the ground for ten minutes.

This is confirmed by the absence of corresponding passive, pseudo-cleft and anaphoric pronominal constructions:

*Panting on the ground was lain by him for ten minutes.

*Panting on the ground was what he lay for ten minutes.

*He lay that for ten minutes.

The ing in (28) above corresponds rather to the adjective motionless in:

He lay motionless on the ground for ten minutes.

Both denote attributes of the subject of lay which are valid only for the duration of the lying, a fact which indicates that they are not directly incident to the subject but are rather in relation first of all to the verb and through the latter to the subject. A further indication that this function involves a relationship with the verb rather than directly with the noun or pronoun subject is its occurrence with non-finite forms of the verb, where there is no grammatical subject:

To lie motionless on the ground is a good way to make bears think you are dead.

5.1.2.2 The Function of the Infinitive

The to-infinitive used as complement of a transitive verb is universally assumed to have the function of direct object with respect to the latter. This stands in contradiction however with most of the criteria used to identify this function. The only criterion which applies fairly well to infinitival constructions is pseudo-clefting:

(34)	a.	Everyone wanted to keep warm.

b.	What everyone wanted was to keep warm.

However, as pointed out by several authors (Visser 1969:1312, Matthews 1981: 181-182, Mair 1990: 105), these constructions do not have passive equivalents:

(34)	c.	*To keep warm was wanted by everyone.

Nor is the to-infinitive replaceable by a nominal pronoun here:

(34)	d.	*Everyone wanted to keep warm and Joe wanted it as well.

The pro-form used in this case is rather the preposition to itself:

(34)	e.	Everyone wanted to keep warm and Joe wanted to as well.

Semantically speaking, there are also problems with treating the to-infinitive as a direct object. Such an analysis would lead to an artificial separation between two constructions such as (35) and (36) below:

Paul wanted to be alone.

Paul longed to be alone.

The difference between longing and wanting seems here to merely have to do with the intensity of the desire, with the meaning-relation between the to-infinitive and the main verb remaining the same in both cases. Consequently, just as there is nothing conceived as being ‘longed’ in (36), it will be argued here that there is nothing conceived as being ‘wanted’ in (35). The to-infinitive phrase is used to complete the meaning of the main verb in the same way as the prepositional phrases in the sentences below:

I knew about Bill already.

She guessed at the answer.

He begged for a dollar so he could buy a coffee.

As is the case with want, these verbs also have transitive uses, where they are indeed construed with a direct object:

I knew Bill already.

She guessed the answer.

He begged a dollar so he could buy a coffee.

Significant for the analysis proposed here is the fact that in some cases the nuance between the direct object construction and the prepositional phrase is extremely slight:

(43)	a.	She craved pardon.

b.	She craved for pardon.

Here it amounts pragmatically to almost the same message whether pardon is represented as ‘that which is craved’, as in (43a), or whether it is seen as a goal towards whose attainment the craving is oriented, as in (43b). Similarly, with want the overall message conveyed is practically the same in a construction with a direct object, cf. (44a), as in a construction with a prepositional infinitive phrase (44b):

(44)	a.	He wanted a rest.

b.	He wanted to rest.

Nevertheless, just as for pardon is not represented as ‘that which is craved’ in (43b), to rest is not conceived as ‘that which is wanted’ in (44b). It will be held here that the prepositional infinitive phrase fulfils the role of a circumstantial of goal or result in such constructions.

This analysis is supported by the fact that the prepositional infinitive is found after many verbs which do not admit direct objects:

(45)	a.	She was hoping to rest later on.

b.	*She was hoping a rest later on.

(46)	a.	He strove to be recognized on the theater scene.

b.	*He strove recognition on the theater scene.

These verbs do however admit of construal with forward-looking prepositional phrases:

She was hoping for a rest later on.

He strove for recognition on the theater scene.

Further support for this analysis is provided by the fact that to-infinitive phrases share with other prepositional phrases the capacity of modifying nouns or adjectives:

(49)	a.	His desire to see her grew stronger every day.

b.	His desire for recognition grew stronger every day.

(50)	a.	He was ready to fight.

b.	He was ready for a fight.

Based on these parallels between to-infinitives and prepositional phrases, the to-infinitive will be analyzed here as a prepositional phrase with the function of goal or result circumstantial. This is consonant with the fact pointed out above regarding (23a) and (23b) that the preposition to contributes its own meaning to sentences in which it is used to introduce the infinitive. This meaning represents the event denoted by the infinitive as the end-point of a movement leading up to this event’s place in time. In the constructions under consideration here, the notion of movement is already contained in or implied by the matrix verb, so that to presents the infinitive’s event as the goal or result of this prior action or state.2

5.1.3 The Lexical Content of the Matrix Verb

5.1.3.1 Verbs Referring to the Beginning of an Event

This brings us to the third parameter required for the explanation of the meaning effects found in constructions with the so-called aspectual verbs: the lexical content of these verbs themselves. We will begin by looking at the verbs referring to the initiation of an event: start, begin and commence. Both Webster’s 1968 and Hayakawa & Ehrlich 1994 agree that commence is simply a more formal term for begin, there being practically no contexts in which begin will not serve well in place of commence. The latter, as pointed out by Webster’s, is often associated with court proceedings, religious or civil ceremonies and military operations (to commence a lawsuit; divine service commences promptly at eleven; directs the commission to commence its work not later than thirty days from the adoption of this resolution). Hayakawa & Ehrlich note that commence is sometimes used vulgarly or humorously in other than solemn contexts (We commenced to drink our beer). The ironic effect observed here confirms the connotations of formal solemnity attached to this verb.

More difficult to characterize is the distinction between begin and start. Hayakawa & Ehrlich state that “in many contexts start is interchangeable with begin” and give (51) as an example:

The engine started (or began) smoking.

They then go on however to claim that start “places more emphasis on the fact of making a beginning, the mere act of setting out”. Webster’s comes out even more strongly in favour of the existence of a distinction, claiming that even though start is often used as if it were identical in meaning with begin and commence, this verb nonetheless “carries implications which distinguish it sharply from the other words.” According to Webster’s, start suggests “a setting out from a particular point (as on a journey, a race, or a course) often after inaction or waiting.” Among the examples given to illustrate this notion is (52):

The children like to see the train start (that is, set out from the station at which it has stopped).

It is significant that begin could not be used in place of start this context.

A cross-comparison of the entries for begin and start in Collins 1995, chosen because of its broad data base in contemporary usage, revealed that the situation occurring in (52) above is not unique: in practically all uses of begin it is possible to substitute start, but the inverse is not true – there are a number of uses of start where begin does not work. Besides the notion of setting out from a particular point in space found in (52), start is also the only verb of the pair to have a causative sense evoking the idea of ‘to cause to begin’ or ‘to cause to be in operation’, as in:

George Granger has started a health centre and I know he’s looking for qualified staff.

He started the car, which hummed smoothly.

This fact has also been pointed out by Freed (1979: 20). Also unique to start is the sense of sudden movement as a result of surprise or fear:

She put the bottle on the coffee table beside him, banging it down hard. He started at the sound, his concentration broken.

This situation of one-sided substitutability suggests that begin is the more neutral term and start provides a particular way of evoking a beginning. This recalls Tobin’s analysis of start as marked for result and begin as unmarked and able to express both process and result, although as indicated above the a priori character of these categories in the markedness theory approach will be objected to here.

Examination of the nouns start and beginning allows these two ways of evoking initiation to be defined further. The start of a race, for instance, corresponds to the very first instant at which the runners move forward from the starting blocks; the beginning of a race, on the other hand, covers a longer period which can extend from the first instant up until a third or so of the total distance involved. This illustrates the more restricted focus of start, a characteristic which is confirmed by the incompatibility of this noun with the preposition in, as compared to the possibility of using in to introduce beginning:

(56)	a.	They were still in the beginning of Chapter Two when I got back.

b.	* ?They were still in the start of Chapter Two when I got back.

As expected, the preposition at has a meaning which fits with that of start: it focusses on the initiation as occupying a precise point in time. Once again here, beginning shows its more neutral character in that it is compatible with both in and at.

The notion of starting also tends to have overtones of suddenness. This element is clearly felt in the use referring to movements of surprise or fear:

Sylvia awoke with a start.

It is also discernible in the expression in fits and starts, which is used to evoke sudden, sporadic burst of activity.

In the light of these observations, it can safely be held that there is a real distinction between begin and start. My characterization of it will be based on the position of Guillaume (1995: 94), who holds that natural language operates primarily on the level of basic impressions arising from common experience and not on that of formal-logical categories. Begin is the more neutral and general of the two verbs and simply designates the initial segment of an event, which means that it is compatible with the evocation of only the very first instant of something (cf. at the very beginning of the chapter), but of itself will tend to suggest a more extended portion of an event. This concurs with Freed’s (1979: 71) characterization of begin as denoting “the initial temporal segment of the nucleus of an event”. Start, on the other hand, contra Freed (1979: 71), who defines it as evoking an onset, does not refer inherently to a segment of an event at all, but rather evokes the notion of breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity, or, in its transitive use, initiating an event by breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity.3 This underlies the intuition expressed by Tobin that start is viewed as an “independent action” while begin “is likely to be inferred as either the initial period of an activity or the activity itself.” (1993: 175).

5.1.3.2. Verbs Referring to the Middle of an Event

According to Collins 1995, continue can be used both when an activity could have been interrupted but was not (58) and when an activity is started again after an interruption (59):

If you are pregnant, there is no reason why you should not start exercising, or continue with any sport or activity you already enjoy.

I went up to my room to continue with my packing.

Resume, in contrast, is restricted to the latter sense of picking up where one left off after an interruption. As for keep, it would appear to have only the first type of sense expressed by continue, i.e. that of not interrupting an activity, as illustrated by:

I turned back after a while, but he kept walking.

This sense is related to that of ‘remaining in a particular state’ found in:

To keep warm they burnt wood in a rusty oil barrel.

It should be noted that keep has a related use in which it expresses the idea of doing something repeatedly:

I keep forgetting it’s December.

In this use, continue is not a good substitute for keep, as it cannot evoke this impression of inability to get out of a habit which is associated with keep + ing.

As for go on, this expression evokes the notion of pursuing some course of action. This is done through the combination of the most general verb of movement (go) with the adverbial particle on, which seems here to evoke the idea of a further or successive position resulting from the movement denoted by go.

5.1.3.3 Verbs Referring to the End of an Event

Of the verbs referring to the act of bringing something to an end or a complete rest, according to Hayakawa & Ehrlich (1994: 438) stop is “the most general, least formal, and most commonly used, yielding the fewest specific suggestions about the way in which the activity is concluded”. Webster’s (1968: 780) brings out an interesting distinction between stop and cease: the former “applies primarily to action or progress or to what is thought of as moving or progressing”; cease, on the other hand, “applies primarily to states and conditions or to what is thought of as being or as having existence”. This dictionary goes on to illustrate how this explains why “a train stops but does not cease; the noise it makes both stops and ceases; one stops a car but may cease driving a car; one stops work on a book but ceases one’s efforts to perfect its style.” Hayakawa & Ehrlich are also sensitive to this aspect of cease’s meaning, bringing out the fact that this verb “carries the specific implication of a total extinction”, as in a newspaper that has ceased publication. Thus, stop denotes the idea of obstructing or preventing the further progress of something. If the thing whose progress is obstructed is an event, the effect will be to evoke the suspension of this event; if the thing whose progress is obstructed is a moving object such as a car or a person, the effect will be to evoke the suspension of the movement of this object. Cease, in contrast, operates on the level of the very existence of things, which explains why only entities which go or are put out of existence can cease or be ceased.

The impression of existential extinction associated with cease also distinguishes it from quit and finish. According to Webster’s (1968: 780) the former is somewhat similar to cease in usage with verbal or deverbal complements in suggesting “finality in ceasing an activity”. It often adds to this notion an implication of accepting frustration or failure, or “disgruntlement and defeat” as Hayakawa & Ehrlich (1994: 438) put it. However, an object which is quit does not necessarily go out of existence, as shown by (63) below from Webster’s:

Since he has quit Party work, he has studied a great deal.

Quit seems to evoke termination as a breaking off or separation of the agent from the event, which explains why it occurs with habits and jobs (cf. to break a habit, to leave a company).

The verb finish implies that what one set out to do is done and so, in the words of Webster’s (1968: 153), “connotes the completion of the final act in a process of elaboration”, as in He finished the report yesterday. If that which is finished is an event, this will imply the latter’s termination, but the meaning of finish is not situated on the same existential level as that of cease, as can be seen from the above example with report in which the finishing does not terminate the existence of that which is finished. The notion of bringing to an end by doing whatever is required to complete something can perhaps best be illustrated by the phrase to put the finishing touches on something.

5.2 Application of the Parameters of Function and Semantic Content of Verb and Complement to Each Aspectual Verb

5.2.1 Verbs Referring to the Beginning of an Event

5.2.1.1 The Function of the Complement

We will begin by establishing the function of the -ing with the group of verbs denoting the beginning of an event. The characteristics of this construction indicate that the gerund fulfils here the role of direct object. The event which it denotes evokes therefore that which is ‘started/begun/commenced’, as attested by the possibility of passive structures:

(64)	a.	All of the countries concerned should start/begin/commence cleaning up water pollution as soon as possible.

b.	Cleaning up water pollution should be started/begun/commenced as soon as possible by all of the countries concerned.

Pseudo-clefting is also possible:

(64)	c.	What they should start/begin/commence as soon as possible is cleaning up water pollution.

Thirdly, the -ing can be replaced by a nominal pronoun:

(64)	d.	They should start/begin/commence that as soon as possible.

Despite the semantic resemblance between the -ing and to-infinitive constructions, the infinitive does not show the characteristics of being a direct object. While pseudo-clefting is not too bad, passive structures are quite unnatural:

* ? To clean up pollution should be started/begun/commenced as soon as possible by all of the countries concerned.

Moreover, the pro-form corresponding to the to-infinitive is not a pronoun, but the preposition to:

They should start/begin to as soon as possible.

For these reasons, the to-infinitive phrase will be analyzed as having the function of goal-circumstantial here.

5.2.1.2 The Interaction of Function and Meaning

The lexical content of begin has been defined above as that of designating the initial segment of an event in a neutral way. If this notion is construed transitively, with the -ing evoking the complement event as ‘that which is/was begun’, then the resulting effect should be to evoke the initiation of the event expressed by the -ing form, and this is what one observes in usage such as:

Britain began designing the ship in 1956 but got nowhere until the American government decided to end a ban on sharing military secrets with Britain that had been imposed after Fuchs blabbed.

(Brown U. Corpus A20 0660)

The realization of the initial segment of an event can also be conceived however as a movement towards the full realization thereof. This corresponds to the intransitive use of begin with the to-infinitive phrase as goal-circumstantial:

There had been an eclipse of the moon. A traditional Lao explanation is that the moon was being swallowed by a toad, and the remedy was to make all possible noise, ideally with firearms. The din was successful, too, for just before the moon disappeared, the frightened toad had begun to spit it out again, which meant good luck all around.

(Brown U. Corpus F24 0200)

There is not much to choose between these two ways of viewing a beginning in most contexts. Only two cases have been found so far where only one of the two complement constructions is acceptable. One of these is the use in which begin is preceded by the negated modal auxiliary can to emphasize the total impossibility of performing some event:

Not being an economist or a man of business, I cannot begin to estimate the worth of such negotiations.

I can’t even begin to describe the beauty of the scene.

(Friederich 1977: 104)

Here the import of the message is to deny the possibility of even the minimal movement of initiation of the event, whence the choice of the construction with the preposition to which evokes this notion of movement. (70) above could be compared to (71) with the -ing form:

I can’t begin describing the beauty of the scene until you stop talking.

Here the realizability of even so little as the first instant of the describing is not in question as in the original sentence. Rather, describing the beauty of the scene is simply represented here as an activity which cannot be begun until the other person has stopped talking.

The to-infinitive is also found in contexts where an action is cut short at its very inception, when only a minimal movement of initiation has been possible. Once again, the -ing does not seem as appropriate as the infinitive in such uses:

I had just begun to say that you were not coming.

(Friederich 1977: 103)

In this type of use, the context often contains a when-clause denoting the occurrence which intercepted the event at its very first moment:

She had just begun to tear it open when there was a loud, heavy knock at the door.

(B.N. Corpus H8F 79)

Of the 23 occurrences of the sequence had just begun in the British National Corpus, only 4 are followed by the -ing, and the notion of interrupting the very inception of the event is not present in these cases:

Some of its humour happened to remind him of his friend Mike Nichols, who had just begun making a career directing plays on Broadway with the Neil Simon comedy Barefoot in the Park and Murray Schisgal’s Luv.

(C9U 264)

The baby had just begun sleeping all through the night and so had joined his siblings.

(H9G 1221)

The Four Points were the most celebrated diplomatic achievement of the Crimean War, but did not seem so at the time they were agreed because Nicholas had just begun withdrawing his forces from the Danubian Principalities.

(HY7 537)

General Zulfikar had just begun saying, ‘If you permit, sir, I shall map out tonight’s procedures,’ when his son wet his pants.

(HH3 10084)

The last example above may appear identical to (72) with the toinfinitive. A difference in impression can however be observed: this sentence is not used to create the fiction of the speaker having been caught before he can even finish the sentence expressing the idea denoted by begin’s complement; in (77) the complete sentence said by the General is quoted and his son’s wetting of his pants is situated at the beginning of this sentence. In the same way, in (74) – (76) events or points in time are simply situated at the beginning of ‘making a career directing plays’, ‘sleeping all through the night’ and ‘withdrawing his forces from the Danubian Principalities’.

Although start appears very similar to begin when construed with the gerund, to the point that Freed (1979: 72, 150154) claims that there is no difference in meaning between these two constructions, important differences are observable with the toinfinitive. Only start can be used in contexts such as (78) below:

Phil started to say something but Eddie cut him short. “Now don’t tell me what a good ball player you are. I know you’ve got talent. But what you haven’t got is the heart to back up that talent with.”

(Brown U. Corpus P24 1300)

Here only the approach to the initiation of saying is realized. The most striking example of this use to come to light is from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye:

I went over to my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare hands. The snow was very good for packing. I didn’t throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too. Finally, I didn’t throw it at anything.

(Salinger 1962: 36)

The fact that one can start to do something but not do it, but not begin to do something and then not do it, leads Freed (1979: 71, 132) to situate starting before beginning, the former designating what she calls the “onset” of an event, the latter the “initial segment of the nucleus”. While this definition works well for begin, the assumption that aspectualizers are simply a nomenclature for different segments of events leads to a misguided analysis in the case of start. Most uses of start + toinfinitive (for example, 42 of the 46 occurring in the Brown University Corpus) are not of the type illustrated in (78) and (79) above, but rather imply actualization of the initial segment of the nucleus, as in:

Grosse quietly got a broom and started to sweep up the sugar. Vince watched him. (…) He got one of the menus and brushed the spilled sugar onto it and carried it to a box on the floor behind the counter.

(Brown U. Corpus L03 0650)

Moreover, start + ing always implies that the complement’s event gets under way, as can be seen by the unacceptability of the gerund in:

* ?John started saying something but thought better of it and remained silent.

If start designates the onset of an event as claimed by Freed, uses such as (81) should be possible. However, she herself explicitly excludes such sentences as impossible: “the possibility of a reading that entails non-initiation of the event named in the complement is limited to start followed by the to V form.” Tobin’s data also confirms that only start + to is used when the complement event is not initiated (1993: 190-191).

To satisfactorily explain these facts of usage, one must take into account the fact that start does not refer inherently to a segment of an event but rather evokes, in its intransitive use, the notion of breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity. Since, as we have shown above, this is the sense which occurs with the toinfinitive, this opens up two possibilities. Firstly, the breaking out of a state of rest can correspond to the preparatory movement just before the actual beginning of an event; this is the case in (78) and (79) above. Or the movement of breaking out of a state of rest can be construed as the initiating of the event itself, as in (80). In the transitive sense of ‘initiating something by breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity’ found in the -ing construction, the complement’s event will of course always be understood to have been initiated, as in:

“This year, coach Royal told me if I’d work on my placekicking he thought he could use me,” said Moritz. “So I started practicing on it in spring training.”

(Brown U. Corpus A12 0160)

This is because the -ing’s direct object function represents its event as ‘that which was initiated by breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity’.

The approach proposed here can also explain the mysterious disappearance of the distinction between begin and start noted by Freed when these two verbs are construed with the gerund: “in the presence of the V-ing complement form, the temporal distinction between begin and start disappears.” (1979: 72-73). Since the –ing is the direct object of both of these verbs, it denotes that which was started or begun. The message conveyed in both cases where the gerund occurs is consequently that the event was initiated. This is also the message expressed by all uses of the to-infinitive with begin and most of its uses with start, in which the realisation of the initial segment of an event is construed as a movement towards its integral accomplishment, a meaning-configuration which implies initiation of the event in question. Due to the fact that start, unlike begin, does not inherently designate a segment of an event, the notion of breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity which it denotes can also be construed merely as a movement towards the first moment of the infinitive’s event, in which case the latter will be understood to be non-initiated. The parameters of analysis proposed in this study are thus capable of accounting for phenomena which were viewed as inconsistencies in previous analyses.

Verbs Referring to the Middle of an Event

5.2.2.1 The Function of the Complement

The function of the -ing with verbs referring to the middle of an event varies according to the verb it occurs with. After continue and resume the -ing form has the role of direct object. On the semantic level, it corresponds therefore to ‘that which is/was continued or resumed’, as can be seen from active/passive correspondences such as:

(83)	a.	Many countries simply continued importing oil from Irak in spite of the embargo.

b.	Importing oil, like many other commercial activies, was simply continued by many countries in spite of the embargo.

(84)	a.	Many countries have resumed importing oil from Irak.

b.	Importing oil, like many other commercial activities with Irak, has been resumed by many countries.

Pseudo-cleft constructions and correspondence to nominal pronouns and phrases confirm this analysis:

(83)	c.	What they continued was importing oil; what they discontinued was importing non-essential items like precious stones.

d.	Many countries simply continued that in spite of the embargo.

(84)	c.	What they have resumed is importing oil; what they are still hesitant about is importing nonessential items.

d.	Many countries have resumed that already.

With keep and go on, in contrast, the -ing is not a direct object. It does not correspond semantically to ‘that which is kept/gone on’:

(85)	a.	Many countries kept importing oil from Irak in spite of the embargo.

b.	*Importing oil, like many other commercial activities, was kept by many countries in spite of the embargo.

(86)	a.	Many countries went on importing oil from Irak in spite of the embargo.

b.	*Importing oil, like many other commercial activities, was gone on by many countries in spite of the embargo.

Nor do pseudo-clefting or replacement by nominal pronouns work:

(85)	c.	*What they kept was importing oil; what they discontinued was importing non-essential items like precious stones.

d.	*Many countries kept that in spite of the embargo.

(86)	c.	*What they went on was importing oil; what they discontinued was importing non-essential items like precious stones.

d.	*Many countries went on that in spite of the embargo.

It will be held here that the function of the -ing after keep is the same as that of the adjective in (87) below, i.e. that of subject complement:

He kept active even though he was in his 70s.

Just as active in (87) denotes a characteristic which applies to the subject of keep, so the -ing form in (88) evokes an attribute applying to the subject of keep at the place in time evoked by this verb:

He kept walking three miles a day even though he was in his 70s.

The same analysis will be proposed for go on, so that the -ing in (89) corresponds functionally to the adjective subject complement in (90):

The market went on falling for the next three months.

The market went on stable for the next three months.

Regarding the toinfinitive in its use as complement of continue, it will be proposed that it has the function of goalcircumstantial, as with start and begin. This analysis is based on the unacceptability of passive constructions (91b), as well as the fact that the proform corresponding to the infinitive is to rather than a nominal pronoun (91c):

(91)	a.	Many countries simply continued to import oil from Irak in spite of the embargo.

b.	*To import oil from Irak, like many other commercial activities, was simply continued by many countries in spite of the embargo.

c.	Mary countries continued to (*that) in spite of the embargo.

As for the toinfinitive phrase after go on as in (92), it will be treated as a circumstantial of result:

(92)	a.	After importing gas, many countries went on to import oil from Irak in spite of the embargo.

The same criteria as those which apply to continue to are found with this construction:

(92)	b.	*After importing gas, to import oil was also gone on by many countries in spite of the embargo.

c.	After importing gas and being told not to import oil, many countries went on to (*that) anyway in spite of the embargo.

The Interaction of Function and Meaning

The function of the -ing and infinitival complements having been established, it is now possible to describe the interaction of this function with the lexical meaning of the matrix verb and the grammatical meaning of the complement form and so to account for the resulting semantic effects observed in discourse. With continue in its transitive use followed by an -ing direct object, it is obvious that the -ing’s event will be evoked as ‘that which is/was continued’:

In 1803 Oersted returned to Copenhagen and applied for the university’s chair in physics but was rejected because he was probably considered more a philosopher than a physicist. However, he continued experimenting and lecturing, publishing the results of his experiments in German and Danish periodicals.

(Brown U. Corpus E26 0820)

By far the most frequent use, however, is that of intransitive continue followed by a toinfinitive goalcircumstantial: it occurs in 108 of the 124 instances of complementation found in the Brown University and LancasterOslo/Bergen corpora. This predominance of the to plus infinitive construction indicates that the notion of movement towards the total realization of an event is highly salient in the idea of continuation. Indeed in 7 of the 16 cases where the -ing is found, it seems to have been used to avoid the repetition of two prepositional infinitive phrases, as in:

Gilpatric did not mention the possibility that one of the motives for Russia’s inexcusable and horrifying series of tests is that she intends to continue poisoning the atmosphere until America is forced to accept Russia’s programme for ‘complete and general disarmament’.

(LOB Corpus G75 158)

However, this stylistic consideration should not be considered absolute, as some writers have nothing against sequences of two infinitival phrases:

It is not an entirely happy book, as Mrs Fink soon becomes jealous of Alicia and, in retaliation, refuses to continue to scrape the algae off her glass.

(Brown U. Corpus R08 1300)

If our hypothesis about the meanings of these constructions is correct, we should expect the -ing to place more focus on the complement event as something existing before or at the continuationpoint, i.e. the point at which the event stopped or could have stopped but was pursued. Some confirmation of this is provided by the fact that in onethird of the cases in which its use cannot be attributed to stylistic considerations, it is found after the present perfect construction of continue:

It [the Federal Court] accordingly refused to assume jurisdiction, whereupon the California Superior Court made the restraining order permanent. Under that order, we have continued referring workers to the ranch.

(Brown U. Corpus J46 1090)

In addition, one use of the toinfinitive has been observed where focussing on what exists at the continuationpoint would make the -ing inappropriate: when the verb continue is construed with the verb hold in recorded messages such as (97) below, only the infinitival construction has been found:

Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold and an agent will be with you as soon as one is available.

(Hewlett Packard hold message)

Here the ing would produce the unwanted effect of causing the person on hold to avert to what they are doing at the present moment, i.e. the unpleasant experience of wasting their time waiting for someone to answer their call. The to plus infinitive construction, on the other hand, throws the focus on the future, encouraging the customer to hold just a little bit longer and someone will be with them.

Usage does not however support Freed’s (1979: 94) claim that continue to evokes “a stop-and-start progression of events (all identical in nature) requiring an interruption between occurrences of the event” and so carries with it an implication of actual interruption. In (98) below with the infinitive construction there is neither a series impression nor any evocation of an actual interruption:

When he finally got the coughing under control, he realized that Pete (all he gave was his first name) was still waiting for an answer – he didn’t even wink as he continued to stare.

(Brown U. Corpus L23 0390)

The suggestion (Freed 1979: 94) that “with the V-ing form following continue, an interruption is at most potential” must also be rectified: while the Brown University and Lancaster-Olso/Bergen corpora contain no instances of actual interruption, dictionaries give among the transitive uses of continue the sense of ‘to resume (as a discourse) esp. after intermission’, which would seem to correspond to the sentence below (cf. the use of then), for which unfortunately no further context is available:

She then continued talking to her friend in a conversation which was peppered with exactly the same word.

(B.N. Corpus CBC 12259)

An incontrovertible instance of the ‘resume’ sense of continue is attested by Bailey (1992: 195):

They rested that night and continued climbing as soon as the sun rose.

Indeed, the only logical constraint on conceiving the -ing’s event as ‘that which is/was continued’ is that this event must have existed in time before the continuation-point. The event can however have been interrupted and then continued (i.e. resumed) at some later point in time. These facts are therefore perfectly in line with the hypothesis held here.

The verb resume itself differs from continue in that, due to its lexical meaning, it always implies actual interruption of the event expressed by the -ing complement:

The Menshikov interlude ended as larks with the Russians usually end. Finding peaceful coexistence temporarily unsuitable because of domestic politics, Moscow resumed scowling and “Smilin’ Mike” dropped quietly out of the press except for an occasional story reporting that he had been stoned somewhere in the Middle East.

(Brown U. Corpus F46 1540)

If the -ing’s event corresponds to ‘that which is/was resumed’ (i.e. picked up where it was left off), this message follows directly from the meaning of resume and the direct object function of the -ing complement. Furthermore, one can also see why resume is not complemented by the to-infinitive: its meaning is not conceivable as a movement of continuation directed towards the full actualization of an event; rather an event viewed as resumed must be conceived as an event whose progress was interrupted at some point and then picked up where it was left off, so that the relation between resume and its complement corresponds to one between ‘picking up’ and ‘that which is picked up’.

The verb keep resembles resume in being followed only by the -ing, except that, as seen above, this form has the function of subject complement rather than that of direct object. The reason for the exclusive use of the -ing after the continuative sense of keep is also different. In order to even evoke the notion of continuation, the verb keep must be construed with a subject complement denoting an event conceived as a situation in which the subject of keep persists or maintains itself. In uses with other types of complements such as in (102) below the idea of the continuation of what the complement denotes is not present:

She kept my umbrella.

The participial realization of the ing provides a representation of an event seen as containing its spatial support somewhere between its beginning and end limits and keep expresses the notion of its subject as maintaining itself in the situation evoked by the ing. The resulting message can be to denote the continuation of an event (103a), although as Freed (1979: 90-91) rightly points out, keep + ing does not always presuppose prior initiation of the event, as illustrated by her example (11), given as (103b) below, which she glosses as entailing ‘I fell asleep repeatedly during the concert’:

(103)	a.	Outside it was blowing a blizzard. I had to watch where I put my feet in case I fell. (…) The only thing I knew with absolute certainty was that I had to keep going.

(Brown U. Corpus L12 165)

b.	I kept falling asleep during the concert.

(Note that in the second case continue could not be substituted for keep.) Freed provides no explanation however as to why keep does not always mean ‘continue’ when used with the ing. This fact is simply a consequence of its lexical meaning, i.e. the notion of maintaining oneself in the situation evoked by the subject complement. Just as in (104) below the subject can be conceived as maintaining itself in a state of quietness for a few minutes without necessarily presupposing that this subject was already in a quiet state prior to the beginning of the few minutes, so in (103b) above the subject is conceived as unable to get out of the situation evoked by the ing complement during the duration of the concert:

I kept quiet for a few minutes.

This distinguishes keep from continue, as one can only continue an event which has been initiated prior to the continuationpoint.

Another aspect of usage concerning which it is of interest to compare continue and keep is with respect to the notion of interruption. Freed (1979: 95) suggests that keep + ing differs from continue to in not admitting use in contexts where the complement’s event is actually interrupted ; cf. (105a) and (105b) below [=Freed’s (24)]:

(105)	a.	If they stop now, they won’t continue to work later.

b.	*If they stop now, they won’t keep working later.

This is confirmed by the corpus; in the only case which seemed to involve an interruption, (106), the -ing’s event appears to be interpreted as being under way even though the person is not physically performing it at the moment of utterance:

Shayne said briskly, “Grab another drink if you want it. We’ve got one other call to make before I meet Alvarez.” “Where?” “It’s out in the Northeast section. Have you got my car here?” “It’s parked in front.” Rourke hastily slopped whiskey into his glass on top of half-melted ice cubes.

“I’d better keep on driving yours,” Shayne decided, “because I’ll be going on over to the Beach. I can drop you back here to pick up mine.” He went over to the closet to get a light jacket, and took his hat from beside the door.

(Brown U. Corpus L05 0130)

Here even though Shayne is in his living-room he can still say I’m driving Rourke’s car right now.

Although Freed’s observation of the difference between keep and continue with respect to interruption is accurate, she does not provide any explanation as to why such a difference should exist. In the hypothesis presented here, this explanation is not hard to find. If keep has the sense of ‘to maintain oneself in a state or situation’ and the ing denotes its event as the situation in which the subject of keep maintains itself, it is quite obvious that the meaning of this construction is not compatible with the notion of interruption. Continue, on the other hand, with its meaning of prolonging or further pursuing an already initiated event (continue + ing) or of moving towards the full realization of an already initiated event (continue to), is perfectly compatible with the notion of resuming an event after being interrupted.

This brings us to go on, which is followed both by the ing and by the to-infinitive:

After Mr Jack drove away, Winston went on looking out the window.

(Brown U. Corpus K28 0760)

He began with masks to make the dancer identify himself with the creature he appeared to be. He went on to use objects – hoops, poles, capes – which he employed as extensions of the body of the dancer, who moved with them.

(Brown U. Corpus G09 0130)

Only with an –ing complement is the notion of continuation evoked. The ing appears to have the function of subject complement here, as does the prepositional phrase in this chaotic state in (109) below:

Things went on in this chaotic state for another week.

Go on evokes the idea of further movement in time and the complement denotes the situation which characterizes the subject of the verb during this moving on to a subsequent temporal position. The resulting effect is to evoke the notion of continuation in the situation denoted by the ing.

With the to-infinitive phrase, on the other hand, the resulting message is rather that of a change or transition from one activity to another, with the second activity often being a logical consequence or corresponding to a promotion to a superior level of activity. This message is the product of the interaction between the meaning of go on, the meaning of the preposition to, and the function of the to-infinitive phrase as a circumstantial of result: the movement on to a subsequent position in time evoked by go on is conceived here as leading to the realization of the infinitive’s event. This use could be compared to the construction with to + noun found in:

After working in a hardware store, he went on to better things.

It is interesting to note that the more general meaning of go (+ on) allows it to evoke both continuation (with the –ing) and transition from one event to another (with the toinfinitive phrase) whereas the meaning of continue, as one would expect, only allows reference to a continuation. As with continue and keep, the meaning expressed by go on with the –ing and the infinitive is a product of the lexical meaning of the matrix verb, the grammatical meaning of the verb form following the matrix and the function of this complement with respect to the latter.

5.2.3 Verbs Referring to the End of the Event

5.2.3.1 The Function of the Complement

The function of the -ing with verbs referring to the end of an event is invariably that of direct object. On the semantic level, it corresponds to ‘that which is stopped, finished, quit, ceased’. This can be seen in active/passive pairs such as:

(111)	a.	Simon Cope of London-based commercial agent Gerald Eve, which is marketing the scheme jointly with Sanderson, Townend & Gilbert, said: “There has been a reasonable amount of interest in the past, and marketing has occasionally been stopped while discussions have taken place, but there are serious discussions going on at the moment.”

(B.N. Corpus K51 786)

b.	“There has been a reasonable amount of interest in the past, and we have occasionally stopped marketing while discussions have taken place…”

(112)	a.	Before filming was finished, she had left Vadim, her director husband, for Jean-Louis Trintignant, her actor husband in the story, a situation which Vadim took with apparent aplomb as he continued to encourage her to strive for even more realism in his rival’s arms.

(B.N. Corpus ACS 766)

b.	Before they had finished filming, she had left Vadim…

(113)	a.	Investigating the case further was ceased when the lieutenant in charge of the investigation disappeared mysteriously last May.

b.	They ceased investigating the case any further when the lieutenant in charge of the investigation disappeared mysteriously last May.

A passive structure with quit is difficult to imagine for some reason. However, the ing is replaceable by a nominal pronoun after this verb:

(114)	a.	“Quit ragging him, Gran,” Rod protested. “I ain’t ragging him!” Gran peered again at the week-old blond mustache shadowing Dan’s upper lip. “But honest-to-Betsy, I’ve seed more hair than that on a piece o’ bacon.”

(Brown U. Corpus N13 1340)

b.	“Quit it, Gran,” Rod protested.

Substitution by nominal pronouns is also possible with stop, finish and cease:

(115)	a.	Stop playing with your food!

b.	Stop it!

(116)	a.	Finish typing those letters later.

b.	Finish that later.

(117)	a.	When he had finally ceased fumbling around in his briefcase, he looked up.

b.	When he had finally ceased that, he looked up.

The to-infinitive after cease behaves the same way as after the other ‘aspectual’ verbs. It does not correspond to ‘that which is/was ceased’ as can be seen from the unacceptability of passive constructions:

*To investigate the case further was ceased when the lieutenant in charge of investigation disappeared mysteriously last May.

The pro-form corresponding to the infinitive is not it or that but rather to:

The family has always taken care of its children, but if it ever ceases to, society will be in deep trouble.

For these reasons it will be analyzed as a circumstantial of goal/result as with the verbs referring to the beginning and middle of an event.

5.2.3.2 The Interaction of Meaning and Function

With the verb stop, given its lexical meaning of hindering or obstructing the progress of an action and the ing’s function of direct object representing it as ‘that which is stopped’, the production of the semantic effect of cessation is easily explainable. As indicated by Freed (1979: 121, 139), stopping can correspond to a temporary cessation:

We stopped discussing the case until some new information could be obtained.

This distinguishes stop from cease and quit, which imply definitive termination (Freed 1979: 121). The idea of blocking the progress of the ing’s event explains the compatibility of the verb stop with the idea of a resumption.

The lexical meaning of finish is that of completing the final act in a process. If that which is finished is the event denoted by the -ing, this will entail that the latter is brought to an end. Thus, as Freed (1979: 139) rightly brings out, finish implies both definitive cessation and completion of its complement’s event. Consequently (121) entails (122), which would not be the case if stop were used in place of finish:

After many months of working and worrying, she finished writing her autobiography.

She completed her autobiography.

Quit also lacks the implication of completion, as shown by Freed’s (1979: 140) pair:

(123)	a.	George quit working on the project.

b.	George finished working on the project.

The same contrast exists with cease, there being no notion of completion in (124), whence the incongruity of finish in this context:

The marine, hands on cheeks, rolled by his unwounded side onto his stomach. He ceased weeping. Matsuo walked toward his tree, once glancing back. The marine was still. He would soon die.

(Brown U. Corpus N25 1350)

Since the lexical meaning of quit involves the notion of breaking off from some activity, and the -ing denotes that which is broken off from, one should expect the quit + -ing construction to imply definitive cessation, as suggested by Freed (1979: 121). This is the case in the four uses of this structure which occur in the corpus, one of which is given below:

Now Eileen really would have to settle down to love, honor and obey, and she’d have to quit drinking.

(Brown U. Corpus K18 1420)

The claim that the complement of quit denotes something habitual or a series (cf. Freed 1979: 113) is not borne out by usage however. (126) below occurs in a situation where the ragging is neither habitual nor serial:

Leaning forward in her chair, Gran nearsightedly scrutinized Dan’s face. “How’s Sally like rubbin’ agin that thar little ticklebrush ye’re a-raising?”

“Quit ragging him, Gran,” Rod protested. “I ain’t ragging him!” Gran peered again at the week-old blond mustache shadowing Dan’s upper lip.

(Brown U. Corpus N13 1340)

There is of course a tendency to use quit for habits (cf. to quit smoking) given the fact that the lexical content of this verb involves the notion of breaking off, and habits are thought of as things which have to be broken to be terminated. In (126) above the choice of quit has to do with the persistent nature of the event and the consequent imperative to ‘leave Dan alone’.

A significant contribution to the understanding of sequences containing verbs referring to the end of an event was achieved in the case of the verb cease, and in particular with respect to the import of the preposition to in constructions involving this verb. It should first of all be pointed out that the to + infinitive phrase is by far the most frequent form of complementation found with cease. In the Brown University and Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen corpora combined, cease + to represents 94% the occurrences of this verb with a verbal complement (55 of the 59 instances). Bailey (1992: 186) reports a similar preponderance of the to-infinitive construction, which was found in 87% of his examples (86/98). This proportion is all the more peculiar as all of the other verbs denoting the end of an event can be complemented exclusively by an ing form.

According to the analysis of to developed here, the to-infinitive after cease has the function of a goal/result circumstantial. This implies that cease itself is conceived as involving the notion of movement, with the infinitive being represented as the term of that movement. Given the description of cease’s meaning as operating on the level of the existence of states or conditions, it will be proposed here that, with the infinitive, ceasing is conceived as a transition to a new state of affairs in which the infinitive’s event no longer exists. This would explain Freed’s (1979: 122) observation that cease is “found to occur more comfortably with states than states can occur with many other aspectualizers and certainly more comfortably than with stop”: a state consists of a sequence of identical instants at each of which the state exists fully; consequently the termination of a state is simply conceived as a transition to an instant at which the state no longer exists.

It is not accurate however to reduce all the uses of cease + to to state-like, habitual events as does Freed (1979: 123) when she claims that “the event in question is understood as having occurred sporadically or intermittently prior to its cessation but not necessarily at the precise moment that cease operates” and questions the acceptability of (127a), holding that cease to would only be found in a context such as (127b):

(127)	a.	? Lacey ceased to cry when she heard her parents come in the door.

b.	Lacey ceased to cry whenever she heard her parents come in the door.

The two examples below show however that this claim is not founded:

She watched the child’s expression as her father spoke to her. She ceased to sob and the light stole back into her face again. For a few moments she gazed up at Julia doubtfully, incredulously. Then gradually the dark eyes grew bright once more, and even began to sparkle as was their wont.

(LOB Corpus P08 108)

Mr. Herman faced them. He had been trembling and shaking. He ceased to tremble. He stood rigid and straight. He was on the stage once again and it was the first night of a play in which he had been cast for the minor role of an evil man’s dupe and confederate.

(LOB Corpus P01 41)

What motivates the use of the to-infinitive to refer to these actions which were ongoing at the point of cessation is the impression of a focus on the state of affairs ensuing upon the cessation and the sharp contrast between it and the previous situation. This leads to viewing cessation as a transition into a new state.

The ing complement construction, on the other hand, involves the transitive sense of cease which can be paraphrased as ‘to existentially terminate (an event)’. Compared to the infinitival construction, this conceptualization shifts the focus slightly from the state of affairs ensuing upon cessation to the event whose existence is terminated by being ceased. It is interesting in this respect to examine the 8 instances of cease + being found in the British National Corpus, where because of the stative nature of the complement event one would have expected the to-infinitive to be used. In 7 of the 8 cases the cessation is in the future and the -ing denotes a situation which holds true at the time referred to by the main clause:

The temptation was that the churches’ social work, begun as a way to win the unchurched as well as help them physically, would cease being the means and instead become the end.

(AE6 267)

How, you may ask, can you cease being a pawn ?

(B21 543)

If annulled it will simply cease being law.

(EUK 627)

Unlike Hegel’s slave, however, who loses his subjectivity to the Master, the ‘slave’ in porn must retain some subjectivity or she will cease being desirable to the master.

(ECV 955)

If demand is at level formula, the industry becomes a natural duopoly (and it will not cease being so until well after formula units of output are demanded).

(EX2 310)

I quickly became aware of what a ‘real polis’ was and more importantly what boundaries one had to cross to cease being real and in effect become unreal, inauspicious, and inhuman.

(AOK 767)

With the restaurant gone, Picon expects the Cypriot corridor, now lined with Cypriot archaic sculpture and glorious Boscotrecase frescoes, to cease being a corridor and become a calm gallery again (…).

(CKW 739)

Since the cessation is future with respect to the ing’s event, which denotes something actually holding true, the focus is consequently on the termination of what exists and not on a transition into a new state. In the eighth use, the ing also denotes something which is still the case at the point in time referred to by the main verb:

The words were beginning to cease being just shapes and pictures.

(CAB 3668)

Here were beginning evokes an incomplete inceptive movement towards the cessation of the -ing complement’s event, which means that the complete cessation is represented as yet to be attained. Consequently, the same relation obtains as in the other 7 uses between a future cessation and an -ing denoting something which is/was the case at the point of reference of the main clause.

The evocation of a transition into a new state of affairs linked with the to-infinitive construction often suggests that this state of affairs is habitual or permanent. This underlies some of Freed’s intuitions about sentences such as:

Barbara resolved that for the rest of the evening, she would cease thinking (?to think) about her exam.

Barbara resolved that for the rest of her life, she would cease to think (?thinking) about the horror that she had endured that week.

(Freed 1979: 124)

The longer the period covered by the cessation, the more appropriate is the notion of a transition to a totally new state of affairs and the greater is the focus on the situation ensuing upon the cessation.

When all that is intended is to evoke definitive termination of an event which had been going on for a certain period of time prior to its cessation, however, only the -ing seems suitable:

I replied at once. To have hesitated would have meant suspicion, and he had a tinge of that already. I told him that I’d found the money, relating in detail all I’ve said before. He kept watching me all the time incredulously. I could quite understand this. It did appear fantastic and almost improbable. But when I’d ceased talking, he said, “Well, Jim, I believe you, I don’t like it.”

(LOB Corpus L15 69)

The to-infinitive might produce the unwanted impression of a loss of the power of speech here instead of the intended message of the speaker simply having finished saying his piece. This is because the transition to a new state of affairs suggests a change in the way things are rather than merely a termination of what was the case at the moment of termination. It should be recalled however that (128) and (129) above show that this change does not have to be permanent in order for the to-infinitive to be used.

6. Conclusions

It is hoped that this study has achieved the goal which it set out to attain, namely to provide a more fine-grained language-specific analysis of the semantics of the constructions which have been examined here. The unsatisfactory character of approaches which assume that the semantics of verbs like start, continue and stop is defined in terms of the abstract categories of ‘aspect’ and ‘auxiliary’ has been demonstrated. Such approaches force the naturally-occurring data of English usage into preconceived molds and imply a view of language in which the semantic categories of all languages are assumed to be basically identical and it is only the match-ups between these categories and their formal markers which vary from one language to another. The approach taken in this study, on the contrary, adopts the position that one cannot assume knowledge of the semantics since the latter is not directly observable and constitutes the very thing one is seeking to discover, as revealed by the capacity of certain linguistic signs to evoke certain messages in their use in context. This explains the attention paid here to the linguistic sign and to an extensive observation of usage, as well as the non-formal nature of the semantic characterizations which have been proposed. Based on a more detailed observation of the data, these characterizations will undoubtedly be refined by future research and consequently our ability to explain more subtle facts of usage should grow.

Three parameters have been utilized to explain the meaning-effects and constraints observed in usage with verbs denoting the three cardinal moments of an event: (1) the semantics of the complement form, i.e. the semantics of to and of the infinitive as compared to that of the –ing; (2) the function of the complement in the sentence; (3) the lexical content of the matrix verb. The –ing has been shown to evoke its event holistically as the direct object of all of the aspectual verbs except keep and go (on). Thus with start it evokes ‘that which is started’, that is, given the lexical-semantic content of start, that which is initiated by breaking out of a state of rest or inactivity. The to-infinitive, on the other hand, has been demonstrated to be a goal/result-specifier due to the meaning of the preposition to, which presents actualization of the infinitive’s event as the end-point of a movement; with start meaning ‘to break out of a state of rest or inactivity’ construed as a movement towards the actualization of the infinitive’s event, this explains why start to can evoke non-initiation of the event denoted by the complement whereas start V-ing cannot. In similar fashion, it has been shown that by means of the three factors enumerated above it is possible to explain all of the significant facts of usage characteristic of the group of verbs examined here, including those which are left unaccounted for by the other approaches applied to this data. This indicates the fruitfulness of taking the new angle which was adopted here on a problem which has drawn the attention of many other scholars.

Address of the author

Patrick J. Duffley

Département de langues, linguistique et traduction

Université Laval

Québec, Qc

Canada G1K 7P4

e-mail: Patrick.Duffley@lli.ulaval.ca

Notes

Essentially the same analysis is reproduced in ter Meulen 1995 and 1997, which are based on the view that “the analogy between existential and universal quantifiers in predicate logic and the aspectual verbs is hence complete.” (1995: 30).

2 This is not meant to claim that the to-infinitive phrase cannot be a true direct object in some uses. One such case would be a sentence such as (i):

Everyone considers not to participate in this meeting a good idea.

Here not to participate in this meeting corresponds semantically to ‘that which is considered a good idea’, as shown by the passive equivalent in (ii), and by the fact that the to-infinitive phrase can be replaced by the pronoun that, as in (iii):

Not to participate in this meeting is considered a good idea by everyone.

Everyone considers that a good idea.

Such constructions where the to-infinitive is a direct object thus show significant semantic and syntactic differences from structures such as (32a) with want, where it has the function of goal-circumstantial.

3 In its causative sense, as in He started the engine, start evokes the notion of causing something to break out of a state of rest or latency.

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