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Agentive infinitive in the context of functional nouns
The article deals with constructions that include an infinitive connected with a noun: resource construction (Dajnozhnicynitkuotrezat’) ‘give me scissors to cut a thread’ and “functional inconsistency” (Ja ne storozhvashiveshchiohraniat’) ‘I’m not your caretaker to watch over your things’. These constructions are compared with the goal infinitive.
In goal construction (X prishelpogovorit’),’X came to talk to you’ X wants P and X will do P. Infinitive is connected with a verb. In resource construction, infinitive P is connected with a noun R that has no infinitive valency. Such connection becomes possible under certain conditions: the noun R is a resource for the situation P. The noun R can refer to an object (scissors, hammer, matches) or person (nurse, caretaker, courier, cf.: Oni ishchutstorozhaskladokhraniat’). ‘They want to hire a watchman to guard the store’. Semantically the infinitive P corresponds to the inner semantic predicate of the noun R. A similar connection occurs in the case of “functional inconsistency”, but this construction must include negation.
Traditional classifications usually ignore such constructions because they belong to non-standard usage.
construction, infinitive, resource, goal, unreal consequence
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