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COPYRIGHT 2005 Adam Mickiewicz University Press
ABSTRACT
The present-day English verb let is descended from one of a set of causative verbs in Old English. In part, its history and present-day status are shared with some of these verbs and others that develop as causatives in the course of time; and the general outlines of this history and, in particular, the resultant system will be my concern in [section]2 of this paper. But let shows some idiosyncratic developments compared with these others; and it is these I shall take up in [section]3. These developments depend in part on the results of the history outlined in [section]2, but they also involve an idiomatisation that throws some interesting light on the interaction of syntax and lexicon in syntactic change. All of this is of some interest in our assessment of the goals of grammar.
1. Introduction
Present-day English let belongs to that small group of causative verbs that take what I shall refer to as the "bare infinitive" as a complement, as illustrated in (1):
1) a. He let the butler leave.
b. He made the butler leave.
c. He had the butler leave.
With them we can contrast in this respect the causatives of (2), where we find rather the periphrastic infinitive as complement: (1)
2) a. He allowed the butler to leave.
b. He caused the butler to leave.
c. He got the butler to leave.
As is familiar, most complement-taking verbs take the periphrastic infinitive. But the capacity to take the bare infinitive infinitives shown in (1) is shared with the "core" verbs of physical perception, as illustrated in (3):
3) a. He saw the butler leave.
b. He heard the butler leave.
And, as is again very familiar, this is also a property of "core" modals:
4) He may leave.
The focus of one of our concerns here will thus specifically be on the status of the bare infinitive and, rather briefly, the history that led to this.
The group in (1) are heterogeneous in some other respects. Thus, while let, like perceptives (Fischer 1991: [section] 1.5), shows straightforward bare passive infinitive complements, as in (5a), make is much more reluctant to accept such complements, while with have they are "truncated":
5) a. He let the butler be replaced.
b. He made the butler ?*be replaced/be examined.
c. He had the butler (*be) replaced.
Passives are better after make if they can be construed as involving some volition on the part of the subject of the infinitive, as with the second possibility in (5b).
The causatives with periphrastic infinitives take a straightforward periphrastic passive complement, except for get, where the usual passive is again truncated (and to-less):
6) a. He allowed the butler to be replaced.
b. He caused the butler to be replaced.
c. He got the butler *((to) be) replaced.
This pairs the indirect causatives have and get.
All of the causatives of (2), when passivised, take a regular periphrastic infinitive. But, though make, when passivised itself, takes a periphrastic infinitive, the other two do not passivise, whichever infinitive is involved:
7) a. *The butler was let (to) leave.
b. The butler was made *(to) leave.
c. *The butler was had (to) leave.
The notation in (7b) indicates that to cannot be omitted.
Make patterns with the perception verbs in this last respect, as with the subordinate active infinitive of (8a), but the perceptives can also take in certain circumstances a "truncated" passive infinitive, like have in (5c) and get in (6c), as is illustrated in (8b), but in this case there is also a full one, but periphrastic, as in (8c):
8) a. The butler was seen/heard *(to) leave.
b. The butler was seen (*?be) dismissed/humiliated.
c. The butler was seen to be dragged away.
But the "truncated" passive in (8b) is much more restricted than with the causatives--though the bare passive infinitive seems to be even more marginal, as marked in (8b).
Whereas all of the causatives straightforwardly take agentive complements, have is less happy than the others with non-agentive complements:
9) a. He let the vase fall over.
b. He made the vase fall over.
c. * He had the vase fall over.
The infinitives with the animates in (10a-b) are also normally interpreted as non-agentive:
10) a. He let the butler fall to his death.
b. He made the butler fall to his death.
c. *He had the butler fall to his death.
If forced to provide an interpretation for (10c), we seek an agentive reading; so that we must resort to, for instance, a reading whereby "he" is the director of a film arranging some scene.
Let shows some more severe idiosyncrasies. Notably, when it takes go as a complement, we find an alternative construction, with a distinct interpretation:
11) a. He let the butler go.
b. He let go (of) the butler.
The instance of the general construction in (11a) involves a regular interpretation of go as a directional verb, so that we can complete it as in (12a):
12) a. He let the butler go to Paris.
b. *He let go the butler to Paris.
The let go sequence of (11b) has an idiosyncratic interpretation. Some light is cast on the development of this structure and its interpretation by the general history of these causative verbs, however--to which I now turn.
In what follows I do not endeavour to provide an account of all the diversity we have encountered in this section; that would involve a much more extended exercise. Here I concentrate (in [section]2) on the (particularly Present-day) status of the periphrastic vs. bare infinitive distinction and (in [section]3) its relation to the development of let + infinitive. I argue that there is a semantic and functional basis for the distribution of the bare infinitive, over-tiding the default status of the periphrastic infinitive, and that its history illuminates the development, in particular, of the idiom of (11b). This development in turn throws some light on some of the other idiosyncrasies of let.
2. The development and status of the bare infinitive
Old English, similarly to Present-day, had two infinitive constructions: one is marked by a suffix, usually in West Saxon realised as -an; the other is periphrastic, involving to + a verb form bearing another suffix, -anne/-enne. These verb forms are historically inflected forms of a verbal noun. The latter construction is often misleadingly called the "inflected infinitive"; here I shall distinguish the (purely) suffixal (ultimately bare) vs. the periphrastic infinitive. These are respectively illustrated in (13):
13) a. We wilniad mid urum hlaforde claenlice sweltan, swidor donne
'we desire with our lord purely to-die rather than
unclaenlice mid eow lybban
impurely with you to-live'
b. da wilnade ic [??]ara monna onsyne to seonne
'then desired I those men's faces to see'
(Mitchell 1985: [section] 955).
The factors determining choice of construction when the complements involve the same verb, as in (13), are unclear. But there are some general patterns in the use of the infinitives. For instance, passive infinitive complements are suffixal (according to Traugott 1992: 243-244); and the periphrastic infinitive, in accord with its historical source, is associated with infinitives that are adjuncts of purpose (Kisbye 1971: A1-13). I am not concerned here, however, with the adjunctival periphrastic infinitive as such, or with the development of the for (...) to construction.
2.1. The basic distribution of the bare infinitive
What is relevant here, though, is that in Old English there is a set of causatives that do not take a periphrastic infinitive complement (Mitchell 1985: [section]955, referring to Callaway 1913: 31, 93). And Fischer (1992: [section]4.6.2.3) discusses causatives and perception verbs as taking the bare infinitive in Middle English. Causatives and verbs of perception in Old English are also the classes most specifically associated by Traugott (1992: 247-248), basing herself on Fischer's (1990: 218-309) analysis of "accusative-and-infinitive" constructions, with "subject-to-object raising". However, Fischer et al. (2000: [section]7.2.2), for example, reject a "raising" ("ECM", in their terms) analysis. I see no reason, however, to adopt their proposal. (2) It is perhaps not coincidental that we can associate with the grouping of causatives and perceptives both co-inheritance of the "subject-to-object raising" construction (however this is analysed) with a bare infinitive and their joint...
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