I think it's an analogical change. Desiderative verbs, like the ones Richard listed, generally take infinitival complements. Demand is the unusual desiderative that doesn't, and so it's not surprising to find this usage spreading.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Veit, Richard
Sent: Tue 12/5/2006 4:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Odd "demand" construction
For me (transplanted New Yorker), you can beg, ask, implore, instruct,
forbid, desire, or expect in that sentence, but you can't demand.
________________________
Richard Veit
Department of English, UNCW
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 3:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Odd "demand" construction
Every so often, I find myself in a situation in which a particular
construction sounds blatantly ungrammatical to me, but not to the
student I'm talking to, and isn't one covered by any of the dialect
materials I've read. Today, it was the following (shortened paraphrase
of original):
She demanded her father to let her live her own life.
I can't use demand this way; it's not (to use an older jargon term) a
"raising verb." My student, who is a native English-speaker, saw
absolutely nothing wrong with it. Have any of you seen this usage
before? I'm trying to figure out whether this is an idiosyncratic usage
by a single student, or a dialect item I haven't noticed before (either
my student's dialect, or a lack of the construction in mine - I speak a
modified version of Alabamite).
Thanks in advance,
Bill Spruiell
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