Verbal regency using “afraid”

I am a Portuguese speaker and in my mother tongue there is something called 'verbal regency', and I think there ought to be something similar in English! Since I am also an English teacher I told one of my students that the verb 'AFRAID' is ALWAYS followed by the preposition 'OF' and never with 'TO'. You see, I am afraid of being mistaken! Could you guys clarify this issue for me? And also, if it is indeed possible to say 'afraid TO', what is the semantic explanation behind it?

Solution 1:

Verbal regency = rules (for joining one word to others)

Although “verbal regency” (ou seja, regência verbal) is not at all an uncommon term when discussing Portuguese grammar, I am aware of no corresponding English term that retains the same register as that term has in Portuguese. All we have for this is various fancy terms most people don’t know. But the concept is quite basic: knowing what the rules are — the “regency” or rulership — to join up one word to other words; here, for forming the sentence predicate.

Probably the best term I’ve managed to come up with is predicate frame, but in English that is a fairly rare specialist term unknown to the general populace. It covers whatever rules exist for how to arrange a given verb’s arguments.

• Some verbs obligatorily take some arbitrary preposition, like of or on or at or with, to connect up with their arguments.
• Others vary in how many arguments they take, like intransitive ones that take no arguments (objects), or transitive ones taking one object, or even ditransitive taking two objects, although not all such are direct object paired with indirect object.
• Still other verbs expect to catenate (chain together) immediately onto another verb that is itself mandatorily either an infinitive or a gerund or either.

Be not afraid

Here we’ll address the rules for the predicate “to be afraid”, which in English is a copular verb plus a peculiar adjective. The main predicate frames allowed for to be afraid in Modern English are these four:

1. be afraid + to-infinitive:

   You can be afraid to stop, or afraid to ask Mom for help.

2. be afraid + of any noun phrase, including a gerund:

   You can be afraid of spiders, or afraid of her, or afraid of asking your Mom for help.

3. be afraid + that and a subordinate clause:

   You can be afraid that you will not get an answer to your question.

4. be afraid + for a person or thing:

   You can be afraid for your sister, or afraid for your own health.

Any decent dictionary will enumerate all the ways that you can join up a given verb to its arguments. But no one ever calls these different possibilities the verb’s “regency” — or at least, not unless they’re directly calquing the Portuguese term directly into English.

The reason that afraid is a peculiar adjective in English is that it resists appearance in the normal, attributive position before its noun. That’s because it long ago began its life not as a general-purpose adjective, but rather as the participle of the verb affray.

So while saying that she is afraid of me sounds fine with afraid in the predicate, it sounds wrong to say that she is an *afraid person, or an *afraid of me person.

More on Portuguese verbal regency

Also keep in mind that the asker is a native Portuguese speaker. Portuguese has two different common constructions that both translate into be afraid in English, but one is a verb temer meaning to fear and which is commonly used when joining up to subordinate clauses, and the other is a phrase ter medo de, literally “to have fear of”, which is more commonly used with noun phrases than it is with subordinate clauses. So when in English we say something like “I’m afraid not” with a copular verb and an adjective, in Portuguese that becomes just Temo que não, which is just a verb alone: “I fear not”.

But the register (the “fanciness”, if you will) of “to be afraid of something” in English is lower than the register of “to fear something” is in English. When translating you need to pick something from the same register, which here will often entail switching from the simple verb to fear in Portuguese to the verbal expression “to be afraid” in English.

So to me it made total sense for the asker to inquire about the “regency” of afraid, despite that being an adjective not a verb. He just wants to know the “rules” for using to be afraid in English.

Solution 2:

Highlighting the difference in utterances using to/of in English versus de in Portuguese. The contrast in meaning is the point.

Noun and verb governing: what nouns and verbs govern.

In Portuguese, the word medo (ter medo de algo, to be afraid of something) is governed ("regido" in Portuguese) by the preposition de. Medo is governed by de just means "it takes it": in order to have some meaning. However, here's the trick for a Portuguese speaker when speaking English.

• Ter medo de falar = to be afraid to speak
• Ter medo de jacarés = to be afraid of big waves

Regardless of whether afraid is followed by a verb or noun, in Portuguese the preposition de is used.

I'm afraid to surf here. = Tenho medo de surfar aqui.

Gosto de surfar nessa praia. = I like to surf at this beach.

So, it is interesting to note that in English also, whether you use a direct object (I like big waves) or use a to+ base verb ( I like to surf), those elements will also in a sense govern (regir in Portuguese) what follows them.

And the explanation above, I believe, explains the logical reason for the OP's misunderstanding.

[bold and italics just does not seem to work here for me].

[The technical term here is, apparently, government, but it is not useful to explaining the cross-lingual issue at work here].