A Corpus-based Analysis of the English Tough Construction

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This corpus-based study reveals facts about the proportion and structure of the English Tough Construction. Firstly, the overall ratio of TC pattern to Extraposition pattern is 3.5:6.5 when the tough adjectives simply occur with a subordinate to-infinitive clause. And then the ratio of TC pattern to Extraposition pattern is 9.1 to 90.9 when they occur with for-NP sequence. Secondly, the Tough Construction is analyzed into ‘tough-related adjective + an optional for-NP complement + to infinitival complement’. As for the status of the infinitival subclause, it is argued to be a complement to the adjective by means of criteria for complementhood. And the status of the for-NP sequence also turns out to be a complement to the tough adjective on the basis of syntactic and semantic facts. Lastly, there arises an ambiguity in meaning of TC when the tough adjective is modified by an adverb ‘too’, which can be clarified by considering the context in which the sentence occurs.