Abstract
Consider sentences (1a–b), from the Bank of English Corpus:
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(1)
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(a)
You’re not willing to commit to prior congressional authorization? (US Spok)
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(b)
House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, Missouri Democrat, refused to commit to a timetable. (US News)
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(a)
Examining the senses of the verb commit in the 1989 second edition of the OED, one is hard put to find the usage exemplified in (1a–b) recorded among them. The closest seem to be two types of reflexive usages, 10.d and 10.e. The former is glossed as “to pledge oneself by implication to a course (evil or risky),” and illustrations include This is what comes of committing ourselves to an evil line of conduct (1839, J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons).
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© 2011 Martti Juhani Rudanko
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Rudanko, J. (2011). Complements of Commit: Variation in the Grammar of an Innovative Verb. In: Changes in Complementation in British and American English. Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305199_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305199_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35909-7
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