Complementation: additional or optional to in infinitives

The term additional or optional to in infinitives refer to the phenomenon that to does not occur in places where StE expects it. Xia’s (2012) study shows that when it comes to the use of to in infinitives, sometimes the infinitive marker to is omitted in to-infinitive constructions, but at other times, that the infinitive marker to is added to auxiliary verbs such as dare in the sentence I dare not to skate. Xia (2012) reasons that the omission of the infinitive marker to can be attributed to transfer from Chinese.

In StE, there are two versions of the infinitival form, the so-called bare form and the to- infinitive. In terms of the bare infinitive, the functions of the English infinitive resemble those of the Chinese consecutive-verb group in situations when the English infinitive functions as predicative, object, adverbial, or when it is used together with “only” (Wen, 2014: 41–43). But in terms of the to-infinitive, “there is no word like to or any change of form to indicate the infinitive” in Chinese (Yuan and Church, 2012: xx).

The differences between Chinese and English also influence the use of infinitives in the ID. The data below exhibit the omission of to before infinitives when the infinitive marker to is expected between two consecutive verbs in StE.

(89) a. (00:20:10) ... <r>and the students in<//r> er er and other peoples er some <r>from</r> from the <r>I learned</r> I learned <r>if I if I didn’t<//r> if I want en <Ø -to> spend my time er efficiently, <r>I I<//r> my future will be just so so. (CS021, WUST)

b. (00:30:57) ... er but maybe <r>I’ll I<//r> I prefer en <Ø -to> <r>share with<//r> share my ideas or <r>are<//r> many things with my friends. (CS041 F, WU)

c. (00:32:08) And no matter what country you will go and <r>what what</r> what kind of university you will go to, <r>you</r> you need <Ø -to> have a <?>liar</?> English <r>proof<//r> er level, ... (CS098, WU)

The infinitive marker to may also be absent after objects which separate two verbs. This is demonstrated by the examples below from the ID.

(90) a. (00:47:19) (Yeah.) <,,></,,> Then we shou- I should <,,></,,> encourage them <Ø -to> speak spoken English, ... (CS010, WUST)

b. (00:09:30) I took the other students <r>go to<///r> <Ø -to>go out to play and so on. (CS053, WUST)

c. (00:23:23) First day. Er <r>I will</r> I will greeting my parents, <r>and</r> and waiting <Ø -for> them <Ø -to> give me new cloth or new shoes or some presents. (CS094, WU)

The infinitive marker to might also be lost following adjectives occurring after an anticipatory it or in similar constructions with for inserted in between, though this pattern does not occur that often in the ID.

(91) a. (00:09:44) <r>It’s hard to get</r> it’s hard for us <Ø -to> get access <r>to<//r> to them, ... (CS019, WUST)

b. (00:35:49) and <r>the all the people in the world<//r> it’s better for <r>the</r> the people in the world <Ø -to> have the same language. (CS098, WU)

c. (00:39:40) And I think <r>it’s</r> it’s more necessary <Ø -to> enjoy the atmosphere that <r>you can<//r> if you want to talk, you can talk. (CS132, WU)

Besides possible transfer from mother tongue, another reason for the different patterns of infinitives might be the rich types of complementation in Chinese, which increases complexity for Chinese learners to use the appropriate types in line with StE (Chang, 2001).

Contradictory to the tendency to delete the infinitive marker to, the inclination of adding it to places where StE has bare infinitives is also shown in the ID as follows:

(92) a. (00:11:48) En en the teachers in university er not only teach us how to do, en but let us do as we can, and en give give us their opinion to how to do and let us en to do what we want to do. (CS047 F, WUST)

b. (00:38:40) so <r>we have to we have to make</r> we have to make ourselves better to adapt to the standards from the socialty<=society> (CS085, WUST)

c. (00:21:14) Because er I think if I come to America or some other western country, it’s my duty to express our own country and let peoples from other country to appreciate it, (CS113 F, WU)

The above examples concern the addition of the infinitive marker to after verbs of coercive meaning such as let, make when the infinitive clauses function as object complements. The use of infinitives runs counter to that of StE. In StE, the nominal bare infinitive clause may function as an object complement with a relatively few superordinate verbs such as verbs of coercive meaning, perceptual verbs and a residual class of two verbs which are optionally followed by a to-infinitive (Quirk et al., 1985: 1205–1206). In this case, Chinese learners might produce a hypercorrection. It is possible that they use verbs of coercive meaning in the same way that they use other types of verbs that need the infinitive marker to.