Non-Finite Constructions in Time Clauses

Abstract

What is the syntactic status of non-finite constructions in English and Albanian? Are they considered as clauses? And, what is more, when carrying temporal meaning, can we classify them as non-finite clauses of time? Non-finite constructions, which are sequences of words that lack a finite verb, have attracted the attention of English and Albanian grammarians. Due to the variety of structures and semantic relations triggered by them, non-finite constructions stand in a thin line between phrases and clauses. While many modern English grammarians treat them as clauses, Albanian grammarians give relatively controversial comments on their status. In addition to the status of non-finite constructions, this paper aims at identifying the major semantic relations expressed by them, analyzing examples from a corpus taken from “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, where time clauses make up about 20.000 words. Comparing the examples from the original text to their counterparts from the Albanian translated version will offer a new prospect on the peculiarities of non-finite constructions in time clauses.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n11p406