This article investigates gerundive and infinitival constructions with the verbs intend, mean, propose and their close synonyms with respect to the abstract categories of “tense” and “control”. Concerning “tense”, the gerundive construction with these verbs constitutes counterevidence to the common claim that the -ing form denotes simultaneity or temporal overlap: the explanation proposed shows that the latter does not correspond to any of the usual aspectual categories found in the linguistic literature. With respect to “control”, an explanation is offered for the tighter constraints on infinitival constructions as compared to the latitude between subject control and non-subject control readings found with the -ing form. These phenomena are explained in terms of the language-specific parameters of the basic meanings of the forms making up the constructions and the syntactic relations linking these meanings together.

This article is concerned with cognate objects (COs) in Russian, of which there are shown to be two types. Only one type of CO exhibits argument properties, while the other type is shown to pattern with predicative nominals. Furthermore, it is argued that the two types of COs pattern with non-cognate nominals with the same function. It is therefore proposed to analyze argument COs on a par with their non-cognate counterparts as thematic direct objects, checking their accusative case in the specifier of Aspect Phrase. In contrast, the non-argument COs are analyzed as secondary predicates over the event argument projected by the main predicate of the clause. Finally, it is argued that a narrow, English-based definition of a CO (i.e., based on zero affixation) cannot be applied to other languages with richer derivational morphology. Yet, once the definition is widened to include all nominals based on the same root as the verb, it is concluded that being cognate is not relevant for the theory of syntax and must therefore be relegated to the morphological component of the language.