Nonfinite supplements in the recent history of English

Abstract

This book explores subjectless ing- and ed- supplement constructions in the recent history of English from a corpus-based perspective. Supplements are constructions in the clausal periphery that do not fulfil a core syntactic function within the matrix clause. Their presence (or absence) does not typically have syntactic, semantic or grammatical consequences for either the structure or the interpretation of the clause. Despite their peripheral status, supplements are prototypically linked to the main clause in different respects. The analysis of this nonfinite supplements allows for a better characterisation of the periphery of the clause in terms of more and less prototypical supplements, and describes diachronic variation in Late Modern English and Presentday English along the features that characterise the construction.