Infinitival Constructions and Argumentative Semantics

Various nominal infinitival constructions in Spanish are analyzed to demonstrate the existence of false infinitives in the sense of S. Varela (1979), ie, forms such as 'sayings' & 'beings' that admit plural inflections & participate in all the nominal constructions of ordinary nouns. Two types of false infinitives are recognized: type A, which function nearly as nominalizations of the verbs from which they derive, & type B, with meanings that seem more distant from those of the base verbs. This difference is explained in the framework of the theory of argumentative semantics, especially its most recent extension by O. Ducrot (2004) as semantic bloc theory, which is claimed to account for the apparently greater semantic distance between type B false infinitives & the verbs from which they are derived. To offer an explanation for the low productivity of false infinitives in Spanish, it is proposed that they can only develop from verbs containing an aspectual feature of homogeneity or property, eg activities & pure statives. J. Hitchcock