A corpus-based study of the complements of begin and start: With a focus on to-infinitives and gerunds

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate the distribution of to-infinitives and gerunds as the complements of the verbs begin and start diachronically and synchronically and to identify the lexical aspects of the complements of the verbs utilizing COCA, COHA and BNC. The results of the analysis revealed that the use of to-infinitives with both begin and start has decreased since 1960s and 2010s respectively, meanwhile the use of gerunds with both of them has increased gradually in general, and this trend has been more salient with start. According to the synchronic analysis of British and American English begin had a stronger preference for to-infinitives as its complement than gerunds in both Englishes, but the preference was stronger in British English than American English. Also, start was found to have a stronger preference for gerunds as its complement in both Englishes, but the preference for gerunds was stronger in American English than British English. Regarding the lexical aspects of the complements of the verbs, some similarities and differences were identified between American and British English. The verb begin with to-infinitives prefers stative verbs and the verb start with gerunds favors activity verbs in both Englishes in general. Meanwhile the verb start with gerunds also favors high frequent stative verbs in American English, but not in British English.