A Corpus-based Analysis of the English Tough Construction

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.