Verb-dependent non-finite complementation
and, in particular, to- and bare-infinitive complement
clauses have been the subject of
extensive investigation and debate. The aim of
this monograph is to contribute to the existing
literature by modelling the variation in relation
to a selection of verbs that govern to- and
bare-infinite complements in the recent history
of American and British English. Using methodologies
provided by corpus linguistics and
multivariate analyses, this book attempts to
account for the forces that make certain verbs
show a preference for either to-infinitive or
bare-infinitive complementation from Middle
English onwards, and to provide a comprehensive
description of the factors that influence
the choice of infinitival. Specifically, this
monograph deals with morphological, syntactic
and semantic/pragmatic variation between
to- and bare-infinitive complementation in
English, governed by, specifically, dare, need
and help.