Verbs of Desire underwent important changes in the course of their histories. In earlier English they could be used impersonally in constructions lacking a nominative subject. When impersonal uses are lost, they are gradually replaced by personal patterns, in particular a pattern where the verb governs a prepositional complement.
Noelia Castro-Chao holds a PhD in English linguistics from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Her research interests include historical syntax and semantics, corpus linguistics, and construction grammar.