NON-FINITE VERB FORMS AS A WAY OF ACTUALIZING TAXIS IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES

Abstract

One of the central categories of functional grammar that characterizes a categorial situation is taxis, which refers to the temporal relationship between events within a period of time. In speech, taxis relationships of simultaneity and nonsimultaneity (precedence or succession) can occur within a single sentence, which can be either polypredicative or formally monopredicative. In the first case, two situations in a pair are expressed by a corresponding pair of predicates, each of which is represented by a finite verb form. In such a pair, one form serves as the main form, while the other is a syntactically dependent form, introduced by special linguistic means, such as temporal conjunctions. In the second case, the sentence formally has one predicate but is semantically complicated by a secondary-predicative construction with a non-finite verb form, which expresses the second situation in the pair and allows taxis relationships to arise between the two situations. Such a secondary-predicative construction can be an infinitive phrase, a participial phrase, or a gerundial phrase. In Romance languages, taxis is actualized through various non-finite forms with differing frequency. In Italian, a deverbal noun actively functions in this role, represented by a substantivized infinitive with a definite article. Such a construction may also include words dependent on the deverbal noun, forming a single logical noun together with it. At the same time, the deverbal noun inherits verbal features and aspectual semantics from the verb, thereby retaining predicativity, and can express an entire situation, as well as describe taxis relationships of simultaneity, succession, or precedence with the main predicate.