The Latin Infinitival Structures with Modal and Aspectual Verbs

This paper presents an analysis of restructuring structures (henceforth RSs) with modal and aspectual verbs in archaic and classical Latin. In particular, extending previous analyses (Zennaro (2004) and Costantini and Zennaro (2010)), I will provide various examples in order to demonstrate that all Latin modal (audeo, I dare; debeo, I must; exopto, I desire; malo, I prefer; nequeo, I cannot; nolo, I do not want; possum, I can; queo, I am able to; volo, I want) and aspectual verbs (aggredior, to be about to; cesso, I stop; coepi/incipio, I start; conor, I try; cunctor, I wait; curo, I make effort to; desino, I leave out; festino, I speed up; maturo, I accelerate; persevero, I continue; soleo I usually) enter RSs. Furthermore, I will discuss some of their properties in relation to Cinque’s (1999; 2004) theory on the hierarchy of functional projections. I will show that the syntactic behaviour of each of the modal and aspectual verbs depends on the kind of modality or aspectuality they express, that is, on the functional projection they occupy with respect to the others, and to the Past Tense in particular.