Control Verbs Vs. Auxiliary Verbs
Control predicates have semantic content; they semantically select their arguments, that is, their appearance strongly influences the nature of the arguments they take. In this regard, they are much different from auxiliary verbs, which lack semantic content and do not semantically select arguments. Compare the following pairs of sentences:
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- a. Sam will go.
- b. Sam yearns to go.
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- a. Jim has to do it.
- b. Jim refuses to do it.
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- a. Jill would lie and cheat.
- b. Jill attempted to lie and cheat.
The a-sentences contain auxiliary verbs that do not select the subject argument. What this means is that the embedded verbs go, do, and lie and cheat are responsible for semantically selecting the subject argument. The point is that while control verbs may have the same outward appearance as auxiliary verbs, the two verb types are quite different.
Read more about this topic: Control (linguistics)
Famous quotes containing the words control and/or verbs:
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)