complement marking

Arnold Zwicky zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
Tue Mar 3 19:39:40 UTC 2009


On Mar 3, 2009, at 10:48 AM, Matthew Gordon wrote:
>
> Are there any verbs that take only pattern 2?
> I was thinking maybe "take" (e.g. I take it that this counts), but
> maybe
> this isn't the same structure?
>
> On 3/3/09 11:38 AM, "Arnold Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
>
>> in our discussion, a lttle while back, of marking the complements of
>> verbs, the case of
>>   (1) V + that-S  and  (2)  V + it + that-S
>> came up.  verbs differ as to which of these constructions they can
>> occur with ("like" allows both, "hope" allows only (1))...

it's very close, but not *quite* the same as the usual examples of
structure (2).   "take" also allows the structure
   (4) V + it + S  ("I take it you're leaving")
with a zero-marked complement.  for me, things like "I like/hate it
you're leaving" (with canonical examples of verbs that allow (2)) are
much less acceptable (though maybe not asterisk-worthy).

so maybe "take" is a good candidate.

arnold

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