prepositions - Are these PPs or non-finite clauses – or something else entirely?

I'm wondering about the construction for [NP] to [VP], as illustrated in the following examples:

(1) I waited for you to come here

(2) He arranged for me to go there

(3) For him to do that took courage

(4) For you to apologise is not enough

My questions are:

• what is this construction from a formal point of view? I can't see how for can be anything other than a preposition, which would suggest that it is a PP – but prepositions can't take infinitive clauses as complements, can they?


• if it's not a PP, but rather a non-finite clause, then what function does for have in the clause, and what is for from a formal point of view?


• are we dealing with the same formal construction in all four examples?



• what are the functions of the relevant construction in (1) and (2)?

Answer

CGEL would say that all four of your boldfaced phrases are to-infinitivals with an overt subject. For CGEL, the for is not a preposition there, but a 'subordinator'.

On p. 1177 of CGEL, we find the following:

[16]  i  I wanted to arrange for Kim to do it.

In [i] we have a chain of three verbs, with for Kim to do it complement of arrange and to arrange for Kim to do it complement of want. We apply the term 'catenative' both to the non-finite complement and to the verb in the matrix clause that licenses it, so that want and arrange here belong to the class of catenative verbs. The last verb in the chain, do, is not a catenative verb as it does not have a non-finite complement.

A bit later on, CGEL explains that

for Kim to do it

is a to-infinitival with an overt subject. According to CGEL (p. 1178),

To-infinitivals containing a subject are always introduced by the subordinator for:

[20]  i  [For them to withdraw now] would be a mistake.                                           [subject]
         ii  It's not necessary [for them to wait any longer].                        [extraposed subject]
        iii  The best plan would be [for them to go alone].                              [predicative comp]
        iv  I can think of no solution except [for them to sack him].        [comp of preposition]