TO-INFINITIVE CLAUSES IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE – NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE WRITERS COMPARED

Zuzana Kozáčiková

doi:10.5817/DI2015-1-53

TO-INFINITIVE CLAUSES IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE – NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE WRITERS COMPARED

Vol.8,No.1(2015)

Zuzana Kozáčiková

https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2015-1-53

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Abstract

The objective of the paper is to examine the use of non-fi nite clauses, more specifi cally to-infi nitive clauses, in written academic discourse and the application of their syntactic and semantic properties in a selected corpus. Based on Quirk et al.’s (1985) subdivision they can be viewed as formal means of text formation and may have nominal, relative and adverbial meaning. This functional classifi cation resembles to some extent that of subclausal units such as noun phrases and adverbs. The analysis focuses on subordinate to-infi nitive clauses in selected papers found in Topics in Linguistics, an international scientifi c journal published by the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia. Moreover, it tries to investigate possible differences in the application of the presented structure by native and non-native writers of English.

Keywords:
non-finite to-infi nitive clauses; nominal to-infinitive clauses; stance; research papers; native writers; non-native writers

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