Infinitive (abbreviatedINF) is alinguistics term for certainverb forms existing in many languages, most often used asnon-finite verbs that do not show atense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived fromLate Latin [modus]infinitivus, a derivative ofinfinitus meaning "unlimited".
In traditional descriptions ofEnglish, the infinitive is the basicdictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without theparticleto. Thusto go is an infinitive, as isgo in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is afinite verb). The form withoutto is called thebare infinitive, and the form withto is called thefull infinitive orto-infinitive.
Being a verb, an infinitive may takeobjects and other complements and modifiers to form averb phrase (called aninfinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (likeparticiples,converbs,gerunds andgerundives), infinitives do not generally have an expressedsubject; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a completenon-finite clause, called aninfinitive (infinitival) clause. Such phrases or clauses may play a variety of roles within sentences, often beingnouns (for example being the subject of a sentence or being a complement of another verb), and sometimes beingadverbs or other types of modifier. Many verb forms known as infinitives differ fromgerunds (verbal nouns) in that they do not inflect forcase or occur inadpositional phrases. Instead, infinitives often originate in earlier inflectional forms of verbal nouns.[1] Unlike finite verbs, infinitives are not usually inflected fortense,person, etc. either, although some degree of inflection sometimes occurs; for example Latin has distinctactive and passive infinitives.
Aninfinitive phrase is averb phrase constructed with the verb in infinitive form. This consists of the verb together with itsobjects and othercomplements andmodifiers. Some examples of infinitive phrases in English are given below – these may be based on either the full infinitive (introduced by theparticleto) or the bare infinitive (without the particleto).
(to) sleep
(to) write ten letters
(to) go to the store for a pound of sugar
Infinitive phrases often have an impliedgrammatical subject making them effectivelyclauses rather than phrases. Suchinfinitive clauses orinfinitival clauses, are one of several kinds ofnon-finite clause. They can play various grammatical roles like aconstituent of a larger clause or sentence; for example it may form anoun phrase oradverb. 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 clauseto get married is contained within the finitedependent clausethat John Welborn is going to get married to Blair; this in turn is contained within another infinitival clause, which is contained in the finiteindependent clause (the whole sentence).
The grammatical structure of an infinitival clause may differ from that of a corresponding finite clause. For example, inGerman, the infinitive form of the verb usually goes to the end of its clause, whereas a finite verb (in an independent clause) typically comes insecond position.
Clauses with implicit subject in the objective case
Following certain verbs or prepositions, infinitives commonlydo have an implicit subject, e.g.,
I wantthem to eat their dinner.
Forhim to fail now would be a disappointment.
As these examples illustrate, the implicit subject of the infinitive occurs in theobjective case (them, him) in contrast to thenominative case that occurs with a finite verb, e.g., "They ate their dinner." Suchaccusative and infinitive constructions are present inLatin andAncient Greek, as well as many modern languages. The atypical case regarding the implicit subject of an infinitive is an example ofexceptional 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.
In some languages, infinitives may be marked forgrammatical categories likevoice,aspect, and to some extenttense. This may be done byinflection, as with the Latin perfect and passive infinitives, or byperiphrasis (with the use ofauxiliary verbs), as with the Latin future infinitives or the English perfect and progressive infinitives.
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 forpassive 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)
Perfect infinitives are also found in other European languages that haveperfect forms with auxiliaries similarly to English. For example,avoir mangé means "(to) have eaten" in French.
The term "infinitive" is traditionally applied to the unmarked form of the verb (the"plain form") when it forms anon-finite verb, whether or not introduced by theparticleto. Hencesit andto sit, as used in the following sentences, would each be considered an infinitive:
I cansit here all day.
I wantto sit on the other chair.
The form withoutto is called thebare infinitive; the form introduced byto is called thefull infinitive orto-infinitive.
The other non-finite verb forms in English are thegerund or presentparticiple (the-ing form), and thepast participle – these are not considered infinitives. Moreover, the unmarked form of the verb is not considered an infinitive when it forms afinite verb: like a presentindicative ("Isit every day"),subjunctive ("I suggest that hesit"), orimperative ("Sit down!"). (For someirregular verbs the form of the infinitive coincides additionally with that of the past tense and/or past participle, like in the case ofput.)
Certainauxiliary verbs aremodal verbs (such ascan,must, etc., whichdefective verbs lacking an infinitive form or any truly inflected non-finite form) are complemented by a bare infinitive verb.periphrastic items, such as (1)had better orought to as substitutes forshould, (2)used to as a substitute fordid, and (3)(to) be able to forcan, are similarly complemented by a bare infinitive verb. Infinitives arenegated by simply preceding them withnot. Of course the verbdo, when complementing a finite verb, occurs as an infinitive. However, the auxiliary verbshave (used to form theperfect) andbe (used to form thepassive voice andcontinuous aspect) often occur as an infinitive: "I shouldhave finished by now"; "It's thoughtto have been a burial site"; "Let himbe released"; "I hopeto be working tomorrow."
Huddleston andPullum'sCambridge 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 theinfinitivalclause, noting that English uses the same form of the verb, theplain form, in infinitival clauses that it uses in imperative and present-subjunctive clauses.[2]
A matter of controversy amongprescriptive grammarians and style writers has been the appropriateness of separating the two words of theto-infinitive (as in "I expectto happilysit here"). For details of this, seesplit infinitive. Opposinglinguistic theories typically do not consider theto-infinitive a distinctconstituent, instead regarding the scope of the particleto as an entire verb phrase; thus,to buy a car is parsed liketo [buy [a car]], not like[to buy] [a car].
The bare infinitive and theto-infinitive have a variety of uses in English. The two forms are mostly incomplementary distribution – certain contexts call for one, and certain contexts for the other; they are not normally interchangeable, except in occasional instances like after the verbhelp, where either can be used.
The main uses of infinitives (or infinitive phrases) are varied:
to express purpose, intent or result, as theto-infinitive can have the meaning ofin order to, e.g. "I closed the door [in order]to block out any noise."
to characterize an adjective, e.g., "keento get on" or "niceto listen to".
Adjectivally, characterizing a noun, e.g. "a requestto see someone" or "the methodto use."
Inelliptical questions (direct or indirect): "I don't know whereto go."
the bare infinitive is used afterwhy, e.g., "Whyreveal it?"
theto- infinitive is used:
a. afterwhom, e.g., "Whom tobelieve?"
b. afterwhat, e.g., "What todo?"
c. afterwhen, e.g., "When tosurrender?"
d. afterwhere, e.g., "Where togo?"
e. afterhow, e.g., "How toknow?"
The infinitive typically is thedictionary form or citation form of a verb. The form listed in a dictionary entry is the bare infinitive, but theto-infinitive is often used when defining other verbs, e.g.
amble (verb)
ambled; ambling
intransitive verb
to walk slowly
to stroll without a particular aim
For further detail and examples of the uses of infinitives in English, seeBare infinitive andTo-infinitive in the article on uses of English verb forms.
The originalProto-Germanicending of the infinitive was-an, with verbs derived from other words ending in-jan or-janan.
InGerman it is-en ("sagen"), with-eln or-ern endings on a few words based on -l or -r roots ("segeln", "ändern"). The use ofzu with infinitives is similar to Englishto, 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 meansthe eating, but alsothe food.
InDutch infinitives also end in-en (zeggen —to say), sometimes used withte similar to Englishto, 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 languagebokmål). 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 appeared in Old Norse as a contraction ofmik (“me”, forming-mk) orsik (reflexive pronoun, forming-sk) and originally expressed reflexive actions: (hann)kallar (“[he] calls”) +-sik (“himself”) > (hann)kallask (“[he] calls himself”). The suffixes-mk and-sk later merged into-s, which evolved to-st in the western dialects. The loss or reduction of-a in the 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.
The formation of the infinitive in theRomance 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, inItalian 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. InSpanish andPortuguese, infinitives end in-ar,-er, or-ir (Spanish also has reflexive forms in-arse,-erse,-irse), while similarly inFrench they typically end in-re,-er,oir, and-ir. InRomanian, 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 thenominal long infinitive.[3] 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 conjunctionsă plus the subjunctive mood. The only verb that is modal in common modern Romanian is the verba putea, to be able to. However, in popular speech the infinitive aftera 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 forvoice (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"). SeeLatin conjugation § Infinitives.
Romance languages inherited from Latin the possibility of an overt expression of the subject (as in Italianvedo Socrate correre). Moreover, the "inflected infinitive" (or "personal infinitive") found in Portuguese andGalician inflects for person and number.[4] These, alongside some dialects of Logudorese Sardinian, Old Neapolitan and some modern Southern Italian languages[citation needed] are the onlyIndo-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 clausein order that you/she/we have... would be translated to Portuguese likepara teres/ela ter/termos... (Portuguese is anull-subject language). The Portuguese personal infinitive has no proper tenses, only aspects (imperfect and perfect), but tenses can be expressed usingperiphrastic 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, Spanishal abriryo los ojos ("when I opened my eyes") orsinyo saberlo ("without my knowing about it").[5][6]
InAncient 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.
tense
active
middle
passive
present
παιδεύειν
παιδεύεσθαι
future
παιδεύσειν
παιδεύσεσθαι
παιδευθήσεσθαι
aorist
παιδεῦσαι
παιδεύσᾰσθαι
παιδευθῆναι
perfect
πεπαιδευκέναι
πεπαιδεῦσθαι
Thematic verbs form present active infinitives by adding to the stem the thematic vowel-ε- and the infinitive ending-εν, and contracts to-ειν, e.g.,παιδεύ-ειν. Athematic verbs, and perfect actives and aorist passives, add the suffix-ναι instead, e.g.,διδό-ναι. In the middle and passive, the present middle infinitive ending is-σθαι, e.g.,δίδο-σθαι and most tenses of thematic verbs add an additional-ε- between the ending and the stem, e.g.,παιδεύ-ε-σθαι.
The infinitiveper se does not exist in Modern Greek. To see this, consider theancient Greekἐθέλω γράφειν “I want to write”. Inmodern Greek this becomesθέλωνα γράψω “I wantthat 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 systemγράφειν, γράψειν, γράψαι, γεγραφέναι, Modern Greek uses only the formγράψει, a development of the ancient Greek aorist infinitiveγράψαι. This form is also invariable. The modern Greek infinitive has only two forms according to voice: for example,γράψει for the active voice andγραφ(τ)εί for the passive voice (coming from the ancient passive aorist infinitiveγραφῆναι).
The infinitive inRussian usually ends in-t’ (ть) preceded by athematic vowel, or-ti (ти), if not preceded by one; some verbs have a stem ending in a consonant and change thet toč’, like*mogt’ → moč’ (*могть → мочь) "can". Some otherBalto-Slavic languages have the infinitive typically ending in, for example,-ć (sometimes-c) inPolish,-ť inSlovak,-t (formerly-ti) inCzech andLatvian (with a handful ending in -s on the latter),-ty (-ти) inUkrainian, -ць (-ts') inBelarusian. Lithuanian infinitives end in -ti,Serbo-Croatian in -ti or -ći, andSlovenian 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 andMacedonian 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 arelisted 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 hastwo infinitives, the infinitive absolute (הַמָּקוֹר הַמֻּחְלָט,ham-māqōr ham-muḥlāṭ) and the infinitive construct (הַמָּקוֹר הַנָּטוּי,ham-māqōr han-nāṭūy, or שֵׁם הַפֹּעַל,šēm hap-pōʕal). The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: בִּכְתְֹב הַסּוֹפֵר (biḵṯōḇ has-sōp̄ēr, "when the scribe wrote"), אַחֲרֵי לֶכְתּוֹ (ʔaḥărē leḵtō, "after his going"). When the infinitive construct is preceded by the dative preposition ל־, it has a similar meaning to the Englishto-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus and emphasis, as in מוֹת יָמוּתmōṯ yāmūṯ (literally "a dying he will die", figuratively "he shall indeed/surely die").[7] This usage is commonplace in theHebrew Bible. In Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-register literary works.
Note, however, that the Hebrewto-infinitive is not thedictionary form; instead, verbs are traditionally cited in the third-person masculine singular of the suffix conjugation (the Modern Hebrew past tense), which is the least marked form.
The Finnish grammatical tradition includes many non-finite forms that are generally labeled as (numbered) infinitives although many of these are functionallyconverbs. To form the so-called first infinitive, the strong form of the root (withoutconsonant gradation or epenthetic 'e') is used, and these changes occur:
the root is suffixed with-ta/-tä according tovowel 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 [do something], e.g.,kirjoittaakseni "in order for me to write [something]".
The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final-a/-ä of the first infinitive withe. It can take the inessive and instructive cases to create forms likekirjoittaessa "while writing".
The third infinitive is formed by adding-ma to the first infinitive, which alone creates an "agent" form:kirjoita- becomeskirjoittama. 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 theagent participle, such thatkirjoittamani 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 [doing something]", e.g.,kirjoittaminen "[the process of] writing". 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 [do something]" and may also imply that the act was cut off or interrupted, e.g.,kirjoittamaisillasi "you were about to write [but something interrupted you]". This form is more commonly replaced by the third infinitive in adessive case, usually also with a possessive suffix (thuskirjoittamallasi).
Note that all of these must change to reflect vowel harmony, so the fifth infinitive (with a third-person suffix) ofhypätä "jump" ishyppäämäisillään "he was about to jump", not*hyppäämaisillaan.
TheSeri 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: eitheriha-[iʔa-] (plus a vowel change of certain vowel-initial stems) if the complement clause istransitive, orica-[ika-] (and no vowel change) if the complement clause isintransitive. The infinitive shows agreement in number with the controlling subject. Examples are:icatax ihmiimzo 'I want to go', whereicatax is the singular infinitive of the verb 'go' (singular root is-atax), andicalx hamiimcajc 'we want to go', whereicalx is the plural infinitive. Examples of the transitive infinitive:ihaho 'to see it/him/her/them' (root-aho), andihacta 'to look at it/him/her/them' (root-oocta).
In languages without an infinitive, the infinitive is translated either as athat-clause or as averbal noun. For example, inLiterary Arabic the sentence "I want to write a book" is translated as eitherurīdu an aktuba kitāban (lit. "I want that I write a book", with a verb in thesubjunctive mood) orurīdu kitābata kitābin (lit. "I want the writing of a book", with themasdar or verbal noun), and inLevantine Colloquial Arabicbiddi 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 toJe veux que vous veniez (lit. "I want that you come",come being in the subjunctive mood). However, "I want to come" is simplyJe 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").
^Schulte, Kim (2007).Prepositional Infinitives in Romance: A Usage-based Approach to Syntactic Change. Studies in Historical Linguistics. Vol. 3. Berne/Oxford: Peter Lang. pp. 73–84.ISBN978-3-03911-327-9.
^Callaham, Scott N. (2010).Modality and the Biblical Hebrew Infinitive Absolute. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes. Vol. 71. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.ISBN978-3-447-06158-2.
