THE LINGUISTIC STATUS OF A SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTION WITH A SPLIT INFINITIVE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

. The article is dedicated to the problem of describing the linguistic status of syntactic constructions with split infinitive in English. Split infinitive is a type of syntactic construction in which a word or phrase, most often an adverb, occurs between the infinitive marker to and the initial form of the verb. The purpose of the work is to study the origin, development and formation of the construction with a split infinitive in modern English. In accordance with the goal, this paper investigates the split infinitive with the following objectives: to trace the origin and development of the construction; to analyze the nature of splitters (adverbs) in terms of their etymological and lexical-semantic features; to determine the status of a construction with a split infinitive in modern English and its representation in the native English speakers’ minds. Examples of the lexical units under consideration come from British National Corpus and are subjected to the method of corpus analysis. The studied material can be used in further research on grammar, semantics of the English language, corpus linguistics, as well as in the development of textbooks for practical classes in English and reference books.