Infinitives

Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is derived from Late Latin ''odusinfinitivus'', a derivative of ''infinitus'' meaning "unlimited".

In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle ''to''. Thus ''to go'' is an infinitive, as is ''go'' in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without ''to'' is called the bare infinitive, and the form with ''to'' is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive.

In many other languages the infinitive is a distinct single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like ''morir'' (" odie") in Spanish, ''manger'' (" oeat") in French, ''portare'' (" ocarry") in Latin and Italian, ''lieben'' (" olove") in German, ' (''chitat, " oread") in Russian, etc. However, some languages have no infinitive forms. Many Native American languages, Arabic, Asian languages such as Japanese, and some languages in Africa and Australia do not have direct equivalents to infinitives or verbal nouns. Instead, they use finite verb forms in ordinary clauses or various special constructions.

Being a verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles, converbs, gerunds and gerundives), infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non-finite clause, called an infinitive (infinitival) clause. Such phrases or clauses may play a variety of roles within sentences, often being nouns (for example being the subject of a sentence or being a complement of another verb), and sometimes being adverbs or other types of modifier. Many verb forms known as infinitives differ from gerunds (verbal nouns) in that they do not inflect for case or occur in adpositional phrases. Instead, infinitives often originate in earlier inflectional forms of verbal nouns. Unlike finite verbs, infinitives are not usually inflected for tense, person, etc. either, although some degree of inflection sometimes occurs; for example Latin has distinct active and passive infinitives.

Phrases and clauses

An ''infinitive phrase'' is a verb phrase constructed with the verb in infinitive form. This consists of the verb together with its objects and other complements and modifiers. Some examples of infinitive phrases in English are given below – these may be based on either the full infinitive (introduced by the particle ''to'') or the bare infinitive (without the particle ''to'').
*(to) sleep
*(to) write ten letters
*(to) go to the store for a pound of sugar

Infinitive phrases often have an implied grammatical subject making them effectively clauses rather than phrases. Such ''infinitive clauses'' or ''infinitival clauses'', are one of several kinds of non-finite clause. They can play various grammatical roles like a constituent of a larger clause or sentence; for example it may form a noun phrase or adverb. Infinitival clauses may be embedded within each other in complex ways, like in the sentence:
*I want to tell you that John Welborn is going to get married to Blair.
Here the infinitival clause ''to get married'' is contained within the finite dependent clause ''that John Welborn is going to get married to Blair''; this in turn is contained within another infinitival clause, which is contained in the finite independent clause (the whole sentence).

The grammatical structure of an infinitival clause may differ from that of a corresponding finite clause. For example, in German, the infinitive form of the verb usually goes to the end of its clause, whereas a finite verb (in an independent clause) typically comes in second position.

Clauses with implicit subject in the objective case

Following certain verbs or prepositions, infinitives commonly ''do'' have an implicit subject, e.g.,
*I want to eat them as dinner.
*For him to fail now would be a disappointment.
As these examples illustrate, the implicit subject of the infinitive occurs in the objective case (them, him) in contrast to the nominative case that occurs with a finite verb, e.g., "They ate their dinner."
Such accusative and infinitive constructions are present in Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as many modern languages. The atypical case regarding the implicit subject of an infinitive is an example of exceptional case-marking. As shown in the above examples, the object of the transitive verb "want" and the preposition "for" allude to their respective pronouns' subjective role within the clauses.

Marking for tense, aspect and voice

In some languages, infinitives may be marked for grammatical categories like voice, aspect, and to some extent tense. This may be done by inflection, as with the Latin perfect and passive infinitives, or by periphrasis (with the use of auxiliary verbs), as with the Latin future infinitives or the English perfect and progressive infinitives.

Latin has present, perfect and future infinitives, with active and passive forms of each. For details see .

English has infinitive constructions that are marked (periphrastically) for aspect: perfect, progressive (continuous), or a combination of the two ( perfect progressive). These can also be marked for passive voice (as can the plain infinitive):
*''(to) eat'' (plain infinitive, active)
*''(to) be eaten'' (passive)
*''(to) have eaten'' (perfect active)
*''(to) have been eaten'' (perfect passive)
*''(to) be eating'' (progressive active)
*''(to) be being eaten'' (progressive passive)
*''(to) have been eating'' (perfect progressive active)
*''(to) have been being eaten'' (perfect progressive passive, not often used)
Further constructions can be made with other auxiliary-like expressions, like ''(to) be going to eat'' or ''(to) be about to eat'', which have future meaning. For more examples of the above types of construction, see .

Perfect infinitives are also found in other European languages that have perfect forms with auxiliaries similarly to English. For example, ''avoir mangé'' means "(to) have eaten" in French.

English

Regarding English, the term "infinitive" is traditionally applied to the unmarked form of the verb (the "plain form") when it forms a non-finite verb, whether or not introduced by the particle ''to''. Hence ''sit'' and ''to sit'', as used in the following sentences, would each be considered an infinitive:
* I can sit here all day.
* I want to sit on the other chair.

The form without ''to'' is called the ''bare infinitive''; the form introduced by ''to'' is called the ''full infinitive'' or ''to-infinitive''.

The other non-finite verb forms in English are the gerund or present participle (the ''-ing'' form), and the past participle – these are not considered infinitives. Moreover, the unmarked form of the verb is not considered an infinitive when it forms a finite verb: like a present indicative ("I ''sit'' every day"), subjunctive ("I suggest that he ''sit''"), or imperative ("''Sit'' down!"). (For some irregular verbs the form of the infinitive coincides additionally with that of the past tense and/or past participle, like in the case of ''put''.)

Certain auxiliary verbs are defective in that they do not have infinitives (or any other non-finite forms). This applies to the modal verbs (''can'', ''must'', etc.), as well as certain related auxiliaries like the ''had'' of '' had better'' and the ''used'' of ''used to''. ( Periphrases can be employed instead in some cases, like ''(to) be able to'' for ''can'', and ''(to) have to'' for ''must''.) It also applies to the auxiliary ''do'', like used in questions, negatives and emphasis like described under ''do''-support. (Infinitives are negated by simply preceding them with ''not''. Of course the verb ''do'' when forming a main verb can appear in the infinitive.) However, the auxiliary verbs ''have'' (used to form the perfect) and ''be'' (used to form the passive voice and continuous aspect) both commonly appear in the infinitive: "I should have finished by now"; "It's thought to have been a burial site"; "Let him be released"; "I hope to be working tomorrow."

Huddleston and Pullum's ''Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (2002) does not use the notion of the "infinitive" ("there is no form in the English verb paradigm called 'the infinitive'"), only that of the ''infinitival clause'', noting that English uses the same form of the verb, the ''plain form'', in infinitival clauses that it uses in imperative and present-subjunctive clauses.

A matter of controversy among prescriptive grammarians and style writers has been the appropriateness of separating the two words of the ''to''-infinitive (as in "I expect ''to'' happily ''sit'' here"). For details of this, see split infinitive. Opposing linguistic theories typically do not consider the ''to''-infinitive a distinct constituent, instead regarding the scope of the particle ''to'' as an entire verb phrase; thus, ''to buy a car'' is parsed like ''to uy_[a_car'',_not_like_'' uy_[a_car'',_not_like_''[to_buy">_car.html"_;"title="uy_[a_car">uy_[a_car'',_not_like_''[to_buy[a_car.html" ;"title="o_buy.html" ;"title="_car.html" ;"title="uy [a car">uy [a car'', not like ''[to buy">_car.html" ;"title="uy [a car">uy [a car'', not like ''[to buy[a car">o_buy.html" ;"title="_car.html" ;"title="uy [a car">uy [a car'', not like ''[to buy">_car.html" ;"title="uy [a car">uy [a car'', not like ''[to buy[a car/nowiki>''.

Uses of the infinitive

The bare infinitive and the ''to''-infinitive have a variety of uses in English. The two forms are mostly in complementary distribution – certain contexts call for one, and certain contexts for the other; they are not normally interchangeable, except in occasional instances like after the verb ''help'', where either can be used.

The main uses of infinitives (or infinitive phrases) are as follows:
*As complements of other verbs. The bare infinitive form is a complement of the dummy auxiliary ''do'', most modal auxiliary verbs, verbs of perception like ''see'', ''watch'' and ''hear'' (after a direct object), and the verbs of permission or causation ''make'', ''bid'', ''let'', and ''have'' (also after a direct object). The ''to''-infinitive is used after many transitive verbs like ''want'', ''aim'', ''like'', ''fail'', etc., and as an object complement of a direct object regarding verbs like ''want'', ''convince'', ''aim'', etc.
*In various particular expressions, like '' had better'' and ''would rather'' (with bare infinitive), ''in order to'', ''as if to'', '' am to/is to/are to''.
*As a noun phrase, expressing its action or state in an abstract, general way, forming the subject of a clause or a predicative expression: "To err is human"; "To know me is to love me". The bare infinitive can be used in such sentences like "What you should do is make a list." A common construction with the ''to''-infinitive involves a dummy pronoun subject (''it''), with the infinitive phrase placed after the predicate: "It was nice to meet you."
*Adverbially, to express purpose, intent or result, as the ''to''-infinitive can have the meaning of ''in order to'', e.g. "I closed the door ''in order'' to block out any noise."
*As a modifier of a noun or adjective. This may relate to the meaning of the noun or adjective ("a request to see someone"; "keen to get on"), or it may form a type of non-finite relative clause, like in "the man to save us"; "the method to use"; "nice to listen to".
*In elliptical questions (direct or indirect): "I don't know where to go." After ''why'' the bare infinitive is used: "Why reveal it?"

The infinitive is also the usual dictionary form or citation form of a verb. The form listed in dictionaries is the bare infinitive, although the ''to''-infinitive is often used in referring to verbs or in defining other verbs: "The word 'amble' means 'to walk slowly'"; "How do we conjugate the verb ''to go''?"

For further detail and examples of the uses of infinitives in English, see Bare infinitive and ''To''-infinitive in the article on uses of English verb forms.

Other Germanic languages

The original Proto-Germanic ending of the infinitive was ''-an'', with verbs derived from other words ending in ''-jan'' or ''-janan''.

In German it is ''-en'' ("sagen"), with ''-eln'' or ''-ern'' endings on a few words based on -l or -r roots ("segeln", "ändern"). The use of '' zu'' with infinitives is similar to English ''to'', but is less frequent than in English. German infinitives can form nouns, often expressing abstractions of the action, in which case they are of neuter gender: ''das Essen'' means ''the eating'', but also ''the food''.

In Dutch infinitives also end in ''-en'' (''zeggen'' — ''to say''), sometimes used with ''te'' similar to English ''to'', e.g., "Het is niet moeilijk te begrijpen" → "It is not hard to understand." The few verbs with stems ending in ''-a'' have infinitives in -n (''gaan'' — ''to go'', ''slaan'' — ''to hit''). Afrikaans has lost the distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs "wees" (to be), which admits the present form "is", and the verb "hê" (to have), whose present form is "het".

In North Germanic languages the final ''-n'' was lost from the infinitive as early as 500–540 AD, reducing the suffix to ''-a''. Later it has been further reduced to ''-e'' in Danish and some Norwegian dialects (including the written majority language bokmål). In the majority of Eastern Norwegian dialects and a few bordering Western Swedish dialects the reduction to ''-e'' was only partial, leaving some infinitives in ''-a'' and others in ''-e'' (å laga vs. å kaste). In northern parts of Norway the infinitive suffix is completely lost (å lag’ vs. å kast’) or only the ''-a'' is kept (å laga vs. å kast’). The infinitives of these languages are inflected for passive voice through the addition of ''-s'' or ''-st'' to the active form. This suffix appearance in Old Norse was a contraction of ''mik'' (“me”, forming ''-mk'') or ''sik'' (reflexive pronoun, forming ''-sk'') and was originally expressing reflexive actions: (hann) ''kallar'' (“ ecalls”) + ''-sik'' (“himself”) > (hann) ''kallask'' (“ ecalls himself”). The suffixes ''-mk'' and ''-sk'' later merged to ''-s'', which evolved to ''-st'' in the western dialects. The loss or reduction of ''-a'' in active voice in Norwegian did not occur in the passive forms (''-ast'', ''-as''), except for some dialects that have ''-es''. The other North Germanic languages have the same vowel in both forms.

Latin and Romance languages

The formation of the infinitive in the Romance languages reflects that in their ancestor, Latin, almost all verbs had an infinitive ending with ''-re'' (preceded by one of various thematic vowels). For example, in Italian infinitives end in ''-are'', ''-ere'', ''-rre'' (rare), or ''-ire'' (which is still identical to the Latin forms), and in ''-arsi'', ''-ersi'', ''-rsi'', ''-irsi'' for the reflexive forms. In Spanish and Portuguese, infinitives end in ''-ar'', ''-er'', or ''-ir'' (Spanish also has reflexive forms in ''-arse'', ''-erse'', ''-irse''), while similarly in French they typically end in ''-re'', ''-er'', ''oir'', and ''-ir''. In Romanian, both short and long-form infinitives exist; the so-called "long infinitives" end in ''-are, -ere, -ire'' and in modern speech are used exclusively as verbal nouns, while there are a few verbs that cannot be converted into the nominal long infinitive. The "short infinitives" used in verbal contexts (e.g., after an auxiliary verb) have the endings ''-a'',''-ea'', ''-e'', and ''-i'' (basically removing the ending in "-re"). In Romanian, the infinitive is usually replaced by a clause containing the conjunction ''să'' plus the subjunctive mood. The only verb that is modal in common modern Romanian is the verb ''a putea'', to be able to. However, in popular speech the infinitive after ''a putea'' is also increasingly replaced by the subjunctive.

In all Romance languages, infinitives can also form nouns.

Latin infinitives challenged several of the generalizations about infinitives. They did inflect for voice (''amare'', "to love", ''amari'', to be loved) and for tense (''amare'', "to love", ''amavisse'', "to have loved"), and allowed for an overt expression of the subject (''video Socratem currere'', "I see Socrates running"). See .

Romance languages inherited from Latin the possibility of an overt expression of the subject (as in Italian ''vedo Socrate correre''). Moreover, the "inflected infinitive" (or "personal infinitive") found in Portuguese and Galician inflects for person and number. These, alongside Sardinian, are the only Indo-European languages that allow infinitives to take person and number endings. This helps to make infinitive clauses very common in these languages; for example, the English finite clause ''in order that you/she/we have...'' would be translated to Portuguese like ''para teres/ela ter/termos...'' (Portuguese is a null-subject language). The Portuguese personal infinitive has no proper tenses, only aspects (imperfect and perfect), but tenses can be expressed using periphrastic structures. For instance, ''"even though you sing/have sung/are going to sing"'' could be translated to ''"apesar de cantares/teres cantado/ires cantar"''.

Other Romance languages (including Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, and some Italian dialects) allow uninflected infinitives to combine with overt nominative subjects. For example, Spanish ''al abrir yo los ojos'' ("when I opened my eyes") or ''sin yo saberlo'' ("without my knowing about it").

Hellenic languages

Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek the infinitive has four tenses (present, future, aorist, perfect) and three voices (active, middle, passive). Present and perfect have the same infinitive for both middle and passive, while future and aorist have separate middle and passive forms.

Thematic verbs form present active infinitives by adding to the stem the thematic vowel and the infinitive ending , and contracts to , e.g., . Athematic verbs, and perfect actives and aorist passives, add the suffix instead, e.g., . In the middle and passive, the present middle infinitive ending is , e.g., and most tenses of thematic verbs add an additional between the ending and the stem, e.g., .

Modern Greek

The infinitive ''per se'' does not exist in Modern Greek. To see this, consider the ancient Greek ''ἐθέλω γράφειν'' “I want to write”. In modern Greek this becomes ''θέλω να γράψω'' “I want that I write”. In modern Greek, the infinitive has thus changed form and function and is used mainly in the formation of periphrastic tense forms and not with an article or alone. Instead of the Ancient Greek infinitive system ''γράφειν, γράψειν, γράψαι, γεγραφέναι'', Modern Greek uses only the form ''γράψει'', a development of the ancient Greek aorist infinitive ''γράψαι''. This form is also invariable. The modern Greek infinitive has only two forms according to voice: for example, ''γράψει'' for the active voice and ''γραφ(τ)εί'' for the passive voice (coming from the ancient passive aorist infinitive ''γραφῆναι'').

Balto-Slavic languages

The infinitive in Russian usually ends in ''-t’'' (ть) preceded by a thematic vowel, or ''-ti'' (ти), if not preceded by one; some verbs have a stem ending in a consonant and change the ''t'' to ''č’'', like ''*mogt’ → moč’'' (*могть → мочь) "can". Some other Balto-Slavic languages have the infinitive typically ending in, for example, ''-ć'' (sometimes ''-c'') in Polish, ''-t’'' in Slovak, ''-t'' (formerly ''-ti'') in Czech and Latvian (with a handful ending in -s on the latter), ''-ty'' (-ти) in Ukrainian, -ць (''-ts) in Belarusian. Lithuanian infinitives end in -''ti'', Serbo-Croatian in -''ti'' or -''ći,'' and Slovenian in -''ti'' or -''či.''

Serbian officially retains infinitives -''ti'' or -''ći'', but is more flexible than the other slavic languages in breaking the infinitive through a clause. The infinitive nevertheless remains the dictionary form.

Bulgarian and Macedonian have lost the infinitive altogether except in a handful of frozen expressions where it is the same as the 3rd person singular aorist form. Almost all expressions where an infinitive may be used in Bulgarian are listed here; neverthess in all cases a subordinate clause is the more usual form. For that reason, the present first-person singular conjugation is the dictionary form in Bulgarian, while Macedonian uses the third person singular form of the verb in present tense.

Hebrew

Hebrew has ''two'' infinitives, the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: ''bikhtōbh hassōphēr'' "when the scribe wrote", ''ahare lekhtō'' "after his going". When the infinitive construct is preceded by (''lə-'', ''li-'', ''lā-'', ''lo-'') "to", it has a similar meaning to the English ''to''-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus and emphasis, like in ''mōth yāmūth'' (literally "a dying he will die"; figuratively, "he shall indeed/surely die"). This usage is commonplace in the Hebrew Bible; that is the third person singular past form.

Finnish

The Finnish grammatical tradition includes many non-finite forms that are generally labeled as (numbered) infinitives although many of these are functionally converbs. To form the so-called? first infinitive, the strong form of the root (without consonant gradation or epenthetic 'e') is used, and these changes occur:
# the root is suffixed with ''-ta/-tä'' according to vowel harmony
# consonant elision takes place if applicable, e.g., ''juoks+ta'' → ''juosta''
# assimilation of clusters violating sonority hierarchy if applicable, e.g., ''nuol+ta'' → ''nuolla'', ''sur+ta'' → ''surra''
# 't' weakens to 'd' after diphthongs, e.g., ''juo+ta'' → ''juoda''
# 't' elides if intervocalic, e.g., ''kirjoitta+ta'' → ''kirjoittaa''

As such, it is inconvenient for dictionary use, because the imperative would be closer to the root word. Nevertheless, dictionaries use the first infinitive.

There are also four other infinitives, plus a "long" form of the first:
* The long first infinitive is ''-kse-'' and must have a personal suffix appended to it. It has the general meaning of "in order to o something e.g., ''kirjoittaakseni'' "in order for me to write omething.
* The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final ''-a/-ä'' of the first infinitive with ''e''. It can take the inessive and instructive cases to create forms like ''kirjoittaessa'' "while writing".
* The third infinitive is formed by adding ''-ma'' to the first infinitive, which alone creates an "agent" form: ''kirjoita-'' becomes ''kirjoittama''. The third infinitive is technically a noun (denoting the act of performing some verb), so case suffixes identical to those attached to ordinary Finnish nouns allow for other expressions using the third infinitive, e.g., ''kirjoittamalla'' "by writing".
** A personal suffix can then be added to this form to indicate the ''agent participle'', such that ''kirjoittamani kirja'' = "The book that I wrote."
* The fourth infinitive adds ''-minen'' to the first to form a noun that has the connotation of "the process of oing something, e.g., ''kirjoittaminen'' " he process ofwriting". It, too, can be inflected like other Finnish nouns that end in ''-nen''.
* The fifth infinitive adds ''-maisilla-'' to the first, and like the long first infinitive, must take a possessive suffix. It has to do with being "about to o something and may also imply that the act was cut off or interrupted, e.g., ''kirjoittamaisillasi'' "you were about to write ut something interrupted you. This form is more commonly replaced by the third infinitive in adessive case, usually also with a possessive suffix (thus ''kirjoittamallasi'').
Note that all of these must change to reflect vowel harmony, so the fifth infinitive (with a third-person suffix) of ''hypätä'' "jump" is ''hyppäämäisillään'' "he was about to jump", not ''*hyppäämaisillaan''.

Seri

The Seri language of northwestern Mexico has infinitival forms used in two constructions (with the verb meaning 'want' and with the verb meaning 'be able'). The infinitive is formed by adding a prefix to the stem: either ''iha-'' (plus a vowel change of certain vowel-initial stems) if the complement clause is transitive, or ''ica-'' (and no vowel change) if the complement clause is intransitive. The infinitive shows agreement in number with the controlling subject. Examples are: ''icatax ihmiimzo'' 'I want to go', where ''icatax'' is the singular infinitive of the verb 'go' (singular root is ''-atax''), and ''icalx hamiimcajc'' 'we want to go', where ''icalx'' is the plural infinitive. Examples of the transitive infinitive: ''ihaho'' 'to see it/him/her/them' (root ''-aho''), and ''ihacta'' 'to look at it/him/her/them' (root ''-oocta'').

Translation to languages without an infinitive

In languages without an infinitive, the infinitive is translated either as a ''that''-clause or as a verbal noun. For example, in Literary Arabic the sentence "I want to write a book" is translated as either ''urīdu an aktuba kitāban'' (lit. "I want that I write a book", with a verb in the subjunctive mood) or ''urīdu kitābata kitābin'' (lit. "I want the writing of a book", with the ''masdar'' or verbal noun), and in Levantine Colloquial Arabic ''biddi aktub kitāb'' (subordinate clause with verb in subjunctive).

Even in languages that have infinitives, similar constructions are sometimes necessary where English would allow the infinitive. For example, in French the sentence "I want you to come" translates to ''Je veux que vous veniez'' (lit. "I want that you come", ''come'' being in the subjunctive mood). However, "I want to come" is simply ''Je veux venir'', using the infinitive, just as in English. In Russian, sentences such as "I want you to leave" do not use an infinitive. Rather, they use the conjunction чтобы "in order to/so that" with the past tense form (most probably remnant of subjunctive) of the verb: ''Я хочу, чтобы вы ушли'' (literally, "I want so that you left").

See also

*Auxiliary verb
*Finite verb
*Gerund
*Non-finite verb
*Split infinitive
*Verbal noun

Notes

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Parts of speech
Syntactic entities
Verb types