17292 Lengua inglesa: Gramática II Second Evaluation Exercise / 2015-16
Grado en Estudios Ingleses Prof. Ardid
ENGLISH INFINITIVAL COMPLEMENT CLAUSES
The following sentences each present us with two instances of sure as a lexical predicate:
(1) Tickets for this concert are sure to be popular, so you should be sure to get yours
now.
(2) There is sure to be a lot of people in the concert, so you should be sure you do not
get lost.
It’s not unusual that adjectival lexical predicates follow the syntactic pattern of their verbal
counterparts in case they subcategorize for infinitival complement clauses.
As a matter of fact, the example in (2) would empirically support the claim that the English
lexicon includes sure1 and sure2, each belonging in different syntactic classes.
(i) Analyze in detail the facts in (2), to make a proposal about the syntactic behavior of each
of these lexical predicates, sure1 and sure2, regarding the properties of the subcategorized
infinitival clauses and the status of the nominal acting as a subject in the clause they form.
(ii) Add at least one piece of evidence of your own to support conclusions. You might
consider it easier to work with the following simpler examples and outline your conclusions
in the form of a lexical entry:
(1’) Tickets for this concert are sure to be popular.
(2’) You should be sure to get your tickets now.
(iii) Are the sentences in (3) expected to be paraphrases of each other? Explain in detail.
(3)
a. We are sure to be hearing carols in all stores by now.
b. Carols are sure to be being heard in all stores by now.
(iv) Is the example in (4) expected to be ambiguous? Say why or why not.
(4) They are sure to have bought wine for the party.
Give reasoned answers to all questions.