Infinitive

:::b. follows a verb of causation such as *make*, *bid*, or *have*, e.g. "Make it **stop** or "We'll have them **call** you." :::c. follows a verb of permission, e.g. "Let me **ask** you something." - As a bare infinitive that comprises a phrase rendered in the vestigial permissive mood, e.g. "Let it **be**." - As a bare infinitive that comprises a phrase rendered as a hortative utterance, e.g. "Let's **leave**." - As complements of certain fossil phrases such as *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 that functions, e.g. as :# the subject of a clause: "**To err** is human" or "**To know** me is to love me." :# the object of a predicative expression: "What you should do is **make** a list" or "To know me is **to love me**". - 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." :# to characterize an adjective, e.g., "keen **to get** on" or "nice **to listen** to". - Adjectivally, characterizing a noun, e.g. "a request **to see** someone" or "the method **to use**." - In elliptical questions (direct or indirect): "I don't know where **to go**." - In sentence fragment that constitutes an interrogative :# the bare infinitive is used after *why*, e.g., "Why **reveal** it?" :# the *to-* infinitive is used: :::a. after *whom*, e.g., "Whom to **believe**?" :::b. after *what*, e.g., "What to **do**?" :::c. after *when*, e.g., "When to **surrender**?" :::d. after *where*, e.g., "Where to **go**?" :::e. after *how*, e.g., "How to **know**?" The infinitive typically is the dictionary form or citation form of a verb. The form listed in a dictionary entry is the bare infinitive, but the *to*-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, 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 , but also . In Dutch infinitives also end in -en (zeggen — ), sometimes used with te similar to English *to*, e.g., "Het is niet moeilijk te begrijpen" → . The few verbs with stems ending in -a have infinitives in -n (gaan , slaan ). Afrikaans has lost the distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs wees , which admits the present form is, and the verb hê , 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 appeared in Old Norse as a contraction of mik (, forming -mk) or sik (reflexive pronoun, forming -sk) and originally expressed reflexive actions: (hann) **kallar** + -sik (hann) **kallask** . 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. ## 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 (essentially 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, . 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, , amari, ) and for tense (amare, , amavisse, ), and allowed for an overt expression of the subject (video Socratem currere, ). 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 some dialects of Logudorese Sardinian, Old Neapolitan and some modern Southern Italian languages 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 ter**es**/ela ter/ter**mos**... (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 or sin **yo** saberlo . ## Hellenic languages ### Ancient Greek *Main article: Infinitive (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. ::data[format=table] | tense | active | middle | passive | present | future | aorist | perfect | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | παιδεύειν | παιδεύεσθαι | | | | | | | | παιδεύσειν | παιδεύσεσθαι | παιδευθήσεσθαι | | | | | | | παιδεῦσαι | παιδεύσᾰσθαι | παιδευθῆναι | | | | | | | 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. ### Modern Greek The infinitive per se does not exist in Modern Greek. To see this, consider the ancient Greek ἐθέλω γράφειν . In modern Greek this becomes θέλω **να** γράψω . 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) . Some other Balto-Slavic languages have the infinitive typically ending in, for example, -ć (sometimes -c) in Polish, -ť 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 third-person singular aorist form. Almost all expressions where an infinitive may be used in Bulgarian are listed here; nevertheless 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 (, ham-māqōr ham-muḥlāṭ) and the infinitive construct (, ham-māqōr han-nāṭūy, or , šēm hap-pōʕal). The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: (biḵṯōḇ has-sōp̄ēr, ), (ʔaḥărē leḵtō, ). When the infinitive construct is preceded by the dative preposition , 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, as in mōṯ yāmūṯ (literally , figuratively ). This usage is commonplace in the Hebrew Bible. In Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-register literary works. Note, however, that the Hebrew *to*-infinitive is not the dictionary 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. ## Finnish *Main article: Finnish verb conjugation* 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: 1. the root is suffixed with -ta/-tä according to vowel harmony 1. consonant elision takes place if applicable, e.g., juoks+ta → juosta 1. assimilation of clusters violating sonority hierarchy if applicable, e.g., nuol+ta → nuolla, sur+ta → surra 1. 't' weakens to 'd' after diphthongs, e.g., juo+ta → juoda 1. '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 , e.g., kirjoittaakseni . - 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 . - 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 . - A personal suffix can then be added to this form to indicate the *agent participle*, such that kirjoittamani kirja = . - The fourth infinitive adds -minen to the first to form a noun that has the connotation of , e.g., kirjoittaminen . 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 and may also imply that the act was cut off or interrupted, e.g., kirjoittamaisillasi . 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 is hyppäämäisillään , not *hyppäämaisillaan. ## Seri The Seri language of northwestern Mexico has infinitival forms used in two constructions (with the verb meaning and with the verb meaning ). 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 , where icatax is the singular infinitive of the verb (singular root is -atax), and icalx hamiimcajc , where icalx is the plural infinitive. Examples of the transitive infinitive: ihaho (root -aho), and ihacta (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 (, with a verb in the subjunctive mood) or urīdu kitābata kitābin (, 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 (, *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, the conjunction чтобы is used with the past tense form of the verb (most probably a remnant of the subjunctive): Я хочу, чтобы вы ушли (literally, ). ## Notes ## References 1. Ylikoski, Jussi. (2003). ["Defining non-finites: action nominals, converbs and infinitives."](https://users.utu.fi/jumyli/wp-content/uploads/sites/1378/2022/09/defining.pdf). *SKY Journal of Linguistics*. 2. (2005). "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar". *Cambridge UP*. 3. Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela. (2004). "Aspecte ale dinamicii limbii române actuale II". *University of Bucharest*. 4. Maurer Júnior, Theodoro Henrique. (1968). "O infinito flexionado português". *Companhia Editora Nacional*. 5. Schulte, Kim. (2004). ["Pragmatic Causation in the Rise of the Romance Prepositional Infinitive: A statistically-based study with special reference to Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian"](https://www.scribd.com/doc/4097236/Teza-doctorala-despre-infinitiv-in-limbile-romanice). *University of Cambridge*. 6. Schulte, Kim. (2007). "Prepositional Infinitives in Romance: A Usage-based Approach to Syntactic Change". *Peter Lang*. 7. Callaham, Scott N.. (2010). "Modality and the Biblical Hebrew Infinitive Absolute". *Harrassowitz*. ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive?action=history). ::