La situación modal de las completivas de infinitivo en Plauto

Abstract

This paper is a structuralistic study of the modal character of infinitive object clauses in Plautus, in comparison with alternative formulae such ut + subjunctive or quod. Having demonstrated that object clauses with quod occur only rarely in Plautus, the paper focuses on the pair ut + subjunctive and accusative + infinitive. A detailed analysis of the Plautine corpus reveals a systematic use of ut + subjunctive for object clauses of notional content and helps to confirm the basic hypothesis of the study, namely that infinitive clauses in Plautus are used to cover the semantic area of non-notional object clauses. A numeric comparison of these two constructions and the study of the functional relationship between them is the primary aim of the paper, the main conclusion of which is the proposal of the structure ut + subjunctive object clauses / infinitive object clauses (left area positive), following the basic concept of fiction or absence of fiction.