영어 부정사와 구조 동일성 원리에 대한 통시적 연구

Choi, Byung Jung. 2003. A Diachronic Study of the English Infinitive and its Isomorphism English Language and Linguistics 16, 189-210. In early Old English, the bare infinitive was used as subject or object, because it was a fully inflected verbal noun. But in time, the to-infinitive form began to spread widely through the iconic property of other forms, that is, a natural resemblance or analogy between forms. As the other nouns have determiners or adjectives immediately before them, so with the infinitive 'to' is put before them to fulfil its isomorphism (Jespersen (1909-45, 156), Fischer et aI. ed. (2000) pp.149-l63). Due to the declination of the inflection in late Old English and early Middle English, the nominal character of the infinitive began to lose its force; so to reinforce the nominal property preposition, 'for' began to appear before to; i.e. 'for to go is necessary'. This preposition 'for' is also used to keep its isomorphism in line with the original nominal property of the infinitive. In spite of efforts to keep the nominal iconicity of the infinitive, it began to take on a verbal character from the late Middle English period. In Modern English the infinitive is treated as being verbal. In verbal usage of the infinitive, there occurs a variety of meaning differences according as whether the to infinitive is used or the bare infinitive is used.