INFINITIVE OR GERUND: DIFFERENTIATION OF CASES OF USE AFTER ASPECTUAL VERBS (BASED ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE SOURCES)

Abstract

The article declares a new approach to the issue of using the infinitive and gerund in a compound verbal predicate after verbs of an aspectual characteristic: to begin, to cease, to commence, to continue, to start in English, by analyzing the characteristics of the second part of the compound verbal predicate based on examples in the material studied for the article. The article examines material, about 900 examples, collected from texts of English and American fiction. It is proposed to consider the characteristics of the second part of a compound verbal predicate and identify patterns of their use in this regard, which greatly facilitates the understanding and further use of this grammar, as well as contributes to the development of corpus linguistics. As a result of the study, it is established that the second component of a compound verbal predicate can be considered as a verb of voluntary, semi-voluntary and involuntary action, which determines the patterns of its use in the form of an infinitive or in the form of a predicate after the verbs in question “to begin, to cease, to commence, to continue, to start.” Verbs expressing voluntary actions are used both in the infinitive and in the gerund form, without any differences. Some verbs are used, as a rule, in the infinitive form and express involuntary actions on the part of the subject – these are involuntary verbs. Semi-voluntary verbs are used mainly in the infinitive form and relatively rarely in the gerund form.