This paper puts forward a corpus-based analysis of two constructions in Italian: “V + ADJ + infinitive clause” and “V + ADJ + che (‘that’) clause”. Some verbs, such as essere (‘be’) and sembrare (‘seem’) occur in both constructions; in addition, many adjectives can appear in the predicative complement position of both constructions. The che- clause and the infinitive construction are apparently semantically similar, both express- ing a judgment or an attitude (codified by the adjective) toward the content of the sub- ject clause. However, upon examining corpus data with a distinctive-collexeme analysis (Gries / Stefanowitsch 2004), subtle differences clearly emerge: the che-clause construc- tion tends to be associated with epistemic/evidential adjectives while the infinitive construction shows a stronger association with evaluative adjectives. As a result of the analysis, it can be stated that constructions appear to be characterized by a meaning (see Goldberg 2006), which can be influenced by lexical choices (adjectives, verbs, clitics).
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Titolo: | Constructing judgments: The interaction between adjectives and clausal complements in Italian |
Autori: | |
Data di pubblicazione: | 2011 |
Handle: | http://hdl.handle.net/11567/877378 |
ISBN: | 978-3-8233-6648-5 |
Appare nelle tipologie: | 02.01 - Contributo in volume (Capitolo o saggio) |