The purpose of this paper is to verify the hypothesis of the Great Complement Shift (GCS), according to which infinitival complement is being replaced by prepositional gerund over time. The advance of the to plus gerund (to-gerund) is considered to be the most prominent pattern of GCS (Rudanko 2010, etc.). On the basis of the Corpus of Historical American English, this paper examines the frequency changes from the 1820s to the 2000s involving eight predicates expected to have undergone GCS. It turns out that object and confine have completed the change in the early twentieth century and only to-gerund is used now. The predicates consent, prone and look forward have partially undergone GCS: among them look forward is in the front line and to-gerund overtook to-infinitive in the 1850s and have since spread rapidly; with consent and prone, to-infinitive is still used more frequently but to-gerund is increasing and to-infinitive is slightly decreasing over time. The verbs agree, assent and aspire differ from the others in that to-infinitive has not decreased at all. Since to-gerund is slightly increasing with these verbs, GCS is still justified but not at the expense of to-infinitive.

The goal of this paper is to examine a rather interesting paradigm involving mixed clausal coordination, where different types of clauses (finite CPs, ECM, and control infinitives) are coordinated. It will be shown that the paradigm in question has consequences for several phenomena; in particular it sheds light on the controversial issue of the proper analysis of PRO as well as the issue of whether the SpecvP where the subject is base-generated is higher or lower than the SpecvP which serves as the landing site of object shift.

The English to-infinitive structure has over a dozen different functions, presenting a difficult area for EFL students. The present study shows a relatively dynamic profile of the use of ten to-infinitives functions appearing in EFL children's story writing as the children progress in grade levels and English proficiency—an area that has never been investigated previously. To-infinitives that function as an ‘object’ or ‘purpose’ were most prominent. The students used a higher number of to-infinitives as they progressed from the third to sixth grades. The increase between the four adjacent grade levels did not reach a level of significance, but the increase between middle (third and fourth) and upper (fifth and sixth) levels was significant. The difference was striking when the entire group was re-sorted into lower vs. higher proficiency groups: the increase in the use of to-infinitives was better explained by English proficiency improvement than by grade level progression. This in-depth analysis into the sub-functions adds to the existing knowledge about to-infinitives, which might otherwise remain oversimplified.