
In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. It is called the "infinitive" because the verb is usually not made "finite", or limited by inflection. In some languages, however, there are inflected forms of the infinitive denoting attributes such as tense, person and number. It happens for example in Portuguese language. There are languages that do not have infinitives at all, for example Arabic language, Bulgarian language and Modern Greek. In foreign language courses, the present simple tense of the infinitive is often referred to as the "dictionary form", as this is the basic form of a verb which is usually presented in dictionaries. == English language == ==="To"-infinitive=== By far the most common form of an infinitive in English language is with the Grammatical particle "to", such as in "to walk", "to cry", "to eat", "to fear". This is known as the ''to-infinitive''. William Shakespeare used a number of infinitives of this form in one of his most famous soliloquies, the "Soliloquy of Hamlet" * To be or not to be ... * To sleep, perchance to dream ... Verbs that are commonly followed by a ''to''-infinitive include: agree, aim, appear, apply, arrange*, ask*, beg*, choose*, consent, decide, demand, desire, expect*, fail, guarantee, hope, intend*, long, negotiate, plan, plead, pledge, prefer*, pretend, resolve, seek, swear, threaten, undertake, volunteer, want*, wish*. For example: * I arranged to stay the night. * We intend to go skiing this weekend. * I swear to honour you. * He sought to notify them of this new occurrence. Those which are followed by an object and a ''to''-infinitive include (in addition to those marked with an asterisk above): advise, allow, challenge, command, compel, condemn, enable, encourage, expect, forbid, force, help, induce, induce, inspire, instruct, invite, oblige, order, permit, persuade, prefer, program, remind, teach, tell, train, urge, warn. For example: * The heavy advertising on hoardings induced me to purchase this new appliance. (induce (in the preterite) + object (me) + ''to''-infinitive (to purchase)) * I was compelled to do my homework. * He helped me (to) perform well at this tournament. * She told her to shut up. Some verbs are followed by for + object + ''to''-infinitive. These verbs normally express wanting, and cannot be followed by an object and an infinitive alone (though an infinitive alone may work). These verbs include apply, arrange, ask, call, clamour, long, opt, plead, press, vote, wait, wish, yearn. For example: * I have arranged for the neighbour to water the plants. * I pleaded for him to accompany me to the theatre. ===Bare infinitive=== A less common form of the infinitive is with certain auxiliary verbs, such as "do", "will"/"would", "shall"/"should", "may"/"might", "must", and sometimes "ought". An example can again be found in the speech by Hamlet referenced above; "What dreams may come ...?". Other excludes include "we might win", "I did not go", "he should leave", "we must say it", "I will leave". A third case of infinitive drops the preposition altogether. This is possible when the infinitive form is used in conjunction with a specific set of verbs - these include "feel", "hear", "help", "let", "make" (in the Active voice), "see", and "watch", and ''dare'' and ''need'' in negative sentences. Examples include: * I felt the earth move. ("move" is the infinitive)
* We heard the bell toll. ("toll" is the infinitive)
* She helped me (to) understand. ("understand" is the infinitive)
* I let him win. ("win" is the infinitive) * I didn't dare (to) say what I really thought. ("say" is the infinitive) * I dare say you've come home just a moment ago. ("say" is the infinitive) * Need you be so offensive? ("be" is the infinitive) This is sometimes called the ''bare infinitive''. ===Other infinitives=== In addition to the ''to''-infinitive and the bare infinitive, English also knows other types of infinitive. ====Verbs followed by ''to be''==== This so called ''Passive voice infinitive'' is used after certain verbs, especially reporting verbs, in between which an object stands. Verbs commonly followed by the passive infinitive are: allege, assume, believe, consider, estimate, fail, feel, imagine, instruct, know, prove, reckon, report, rumour, say, think, understand, want. For example: * The new party failed to be elected in at last Sunday's election. * I once wanted to be a constable, but have ended up as a doctor. * She is said to be a wonderful dancer. * We estimate our expenses to be higher than anticipated. * You are rumoured to be rather difficult at times. ====The perfect infinitive==== With reporting verbs, as well as appear, claim, happen, pretend, prove, seem, tend, and so on, the ''Perfect infinitive'' (to + have + past participle) is used to emphasise one action's occurring before another. For example: * You seem to have lost weight. * He was said to have been granted a scholarship. This structure can usually be rewritten with a preparatory it + defining relative (that) clause and a perfect tense. For instance: It seems that you have lost weight. It was said that he had been granted a scholarship. ===Tenses of the infinitive=== Infinitives in English exist in many Grammatical tense. Here is a table showing these different tenses for the verb ''to cook''.
See also gerund.
== Germanic languages ==
The original Germanic suffix of the infinitive was ''-an'', with verbs derived from other words ending in ''-jan'' or ''-janan''. In German language 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 less frequent than ''to'' in English. They can function as nouns in the -en form with a capitalized beginning letter, in which case they are of neuter gender ("das Essen" means the gerund "eating"). In Dutch language 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 difficult to understand". In Scandinavian languages the ''n'' has dropped out and it is ''-e'' or ''-a''.
== Romance languages ==
Romance infinitives can be used in much the same way as the infinitive is used in English, and they can also sometimes function as masculine nouns. In Spanish language and Portuguese language, infinitives mostly end in ''-ar'', ''-er'', or ''-ir''. A similar phenomenon also exists in French language: infinitives of verbs have the suffixes ''-er'', ''-ir'', ''-re'' or ''-oir''. Italian language follows a similar pattern, with its infinitives ending in ''-are'', ''-ere'', ''-ire'' or ''-urre''.
Formation of the infinitive in Romance languages reflects that of their ancestor, Latin, in which a significant majority of verbs had an infinitive ending with ''-re'' (with a varying vowel, called the ''thematical'' preceding it).
Portuguese (and its sister language, Galician) is the only Indo-European languages with a personal infinitive, which helps to make infinitive clauses very common. English finite sentences as ''so that you/she/we have/has/have...'' would be translated to ''para poderes/ela poder/podermos...'' (the Subject (grammar) is dropped very often). Portuguese personal infinitive has only two proper tenses (present and perfect), but other tenses are replaced by periphrasis structures. For instance, ''although you sing/sang/will sing'' could be translated to ''apesar de cantares/teres cantado/ires cantar''.
== Slavic languages ==
The infinitive in Russian language usually ends in ''-t''' (ть) preceded by a thematic vowel; some verbs have a stem ending in a consonant and change the ''t'' to ''ch'', such as *могть -> мочь "can". Some other Slavic languages have the infinitive typically ending in -ć.
== Hebrew language ==
Hebrew language 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 ל (''lə-'', ''li-'', ''lā-'') "to", it is identical in its meaning to the English ''to''-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used to add emphasis or certainty to the verb, as in מות ימות ''mōth yāmūth'' "he shall indeed die". This usage is commonplace in Biblical Hebrew, but in Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-flown literary works.
Note, however, that the ''to''-infinitive of Hebrew is not the dictionary form; that is the third person singular past tense.
== Finnish language ==
The first infinitive is derived from the root word with adding -(t)A or -(tt)AA, with the accompanying consonant gradation and vowel harmony change. As such, it is inconvenient for dictionary use, because the imperative would be closer to the root word. Nevertheless, dictionaries use the infinitive. For example, in ''juokse!'' (run!) the ''-kse-'' is gradated to ''-s-'', and ''-ta'' is added: ''juosta'' (to run).
There are four other infinitives, which create a noun-, or adverb-like word from the verb. For example, the third infinitive is ''-ma/-mä'', which creates an adjective-like word like "written" from "write": ''kirjoita-'' becomes ''kirjoittama''.
==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 phrase "I want to write a book" is translated as either ''urīdu an aktuba kitāban'' (literally "I want that I should write a book", with a verb in the subjunctive mood) or ''urīdu kitābata kitābin'' (literally "I want the writing of a book", with the ''masdar'' or verbal noun), and in Demotic Arabic ''biddi aktob iktāb'' (subordinate clause with verb in subjunctive). Similarly, the modern Greek for "I want to write", as opposed to the ancient Greek θέλω γραφεῖν with the infinitive, is θέλω να γράψω, which is literally "I want that I should write".
== See also: ==
* split infinitive
* auxiliary verb
Linguistics
Grammar
Since when are "may" and "might" considered conditional prepositions? I hesistate to change things, because there are some facts in the article that surprised me when I found out that they were in agreement with what the dictionary says. "Preposition" is one of those words that is used most often by laymen in sense different from how it is used by experts (in this case, linguists). The usage here is the linguistic one: a word that comes at the beginning of a phrase-treated-as-a-word (as opposed to postpositions, which come at the end of such a phrase). In common English usage, though, "preposition" refers to only one kind of linguistic preposition--the kind that take nouns as objects to form adject-phrases or adverb-phrases. English grammarians would refer to the "may" in "you may be right" as an auxilliary verb rather than a preposition, but linguists would call it a preposition that takes a verb as an object and creates a new verb-phrase. I'm not sure how to better word that. --LDC I doubt you will find a linguist who will say it's a preposition. In "I can see", if "can" is a preposition, that "can" cannot have a past tense, as in "I could see". -- Mike Hardy Most linguistic writings I've seen refer to them as auxiliary verbs or, more specifically, as modal verbs. The term "preposition" is usually reserved for particles that modify noun phrases. - User:Gwalla 20:40, May 15, 2004 (UTC) Are these right? From the preceeding paragraph I understood the verb after dare or need is the infintive, not dare or need themselves: # I dare say you've come home just a moment ago. ("dare" is the infinitive) # Need you be so offensive? ("need" is the infinitive) *Agreed and changed -User:Wikibob | User talk:Wikibob 01:09, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC) == Infinitive with may and might == I'm not sure why verbs following may and might are classified as "infinitive", unless we mean "uninflected". If that's what we mean, then the other nine or so auxiliaries should be included: can, could, shall, should, will, would, do (and its inflected forms), must, and some other that I've forgotten. If it's not, I think the "may" and "might" cases should be dropped. Perhaps things would be cleared up if the author of this section would cite their source. I'm not changing the text because there are several possible "right answers" and I don't want to prejudge the issue. It would be nice if we could say more clearly what an infinitive is, giving diagnostics that would answer the question of whether any given verb form in a piece of text was or wasn't an example of the infinitive. There are two possible kinds of diagnostics. First there are ''formal'' tests like "Can you replace the verb with a past tense form?" (If you can, it's ''not'' an infinitive.) Second are ''semantic'' tests having to do with the meaning of the sentence -- these are much trickier. Anyway, I seem to be blithering. If anyone out there in Wikiland has a copy of the magisterial ''Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'', they should consult it on this subject. I don't have one (because it's expensive). User:ACW 20:35, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC) :How much and why? User:Lysdexia 21:30, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC) :You are absolutely right. Not only after verbs following "may" and "might" infinitives, but verbs following "can", "could", "shall", "should", "will", "do", "must", etc are also infinitives. Modal and auxiliary verbs take bare infinitives. There are certainly are authoritative sources for this and I'll provide them if anyone doubts it. --User:Rjp08773 20:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Infinitive:
Infinitive
Infinitive
Infinitives
Infinitive_phrase
Infinitive
In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. It is called the "infinitive" because the verb is usually not made "finite", or limited by inflection. In some languages, however, there are inflected forms of the infinitive denoting attributes such as tense, person and number. It happens for example in Portuguese language. There are languages that do not have infinitives at all, for example Arabic language, Bulgarian language and Modern Greek. In foreign language courses, the present simple tense of the infinitive is often referred to as the "dictionary form", as this is the basic form of a verb which is usually presented in dictionaries. == English language == ==="To"-infinitive=== By far the most common form of an infinitive in English language is with the Grammatical particle "to", such as in "to walk", "to cry", "to eat", "to fear". This is known as the ''to-infinitive''. William Shakespeare used a number of infinitives of this form in one of his most famous soliloquies, the "Soliloquy of Hamlet" * To be or not to be ... * To sleep, perchance to dream ... Verbs that are commonly followed by a ''to''-infinitive include: agree, aim, appear, apply, arrange*, ask*, beg*, choose*, consent, decide, demand, desire, expect*, fail, guarantee, hope, intend*, long, negotiate, plan, plead, pledge, prefer*, pretend, resolve, seek, swear, threaten, undertake, volunteer, want*, wish*. For example: * I arranged to stay the night. * We intend to go skiing this weekend. * I swear to honour you. * He sought to notify them of this new occurrence. Those which are followed by an object and a ''to''-infinitive include (in addition to those marked with an asterisk above): advise, allow, challenge, command, compel, condemn, enable, encourage, expect, forbid, force, help, induce, induce, inspire, instruct, invite, oblige, order, permit, persuade, prefer, program, remind, teach, tell, train, urge, warn. For example: * The heavy advertising on hoardings induced me to purchase this new appliance. (induce (in the preterite) + object (me) + ''to''-infinitive (to purchase)) * I was compelled to do my homework. * He helped me (to) perform well at this tournament. * She told her to shut up. Some verbs are followed by for + object + ''to''-infinitive. These verbs normally express wanting, and cannot be followed by an object and an infinitive alone (though an infinitive alone may work). These verbs include apply, arrange, ask, call, clamour, long, opt, plead, press, vote, wait, wish, yearn. For example: * I have arranged for the neighbour to water the plants. * I pleaded for him to accompany me to the theatre. ===Bare infinitive=== A less common form of the infinitive is with certain auxiliary verbs, such as "do", "will"/"would", "shall"/"should", "may"/"might", "must", and sometimes "ought". An example can again be found in the speech by Hamlet referenced above; "What dreams may come ...?". Other excludes include "we might win", "I did not go", "he should leave", "we must say it", "I will leave". A third case of infinitive drops the preposition altogether. This is possible when the infinitive form is used in conjunction with a specific set of verbs - these include "feel", "hear", "help", "let", "make" (in the Active voice), "see", and "watch", and ''dare'' and ''need'' in negative sentences. Examples include: * I felt the earth move. ("move" is the infinitive)
* We heard the bell toll. ("toll" is the infinitive)
* She helped me (to) understand. ("understand" is the infinitive)
* I let him win. ("win" is the infinitive) * I didn't dare (to) say what I really thought. ("say" is the infinitive) * I dare say you've come home just a moment ago. ("say" is the infinitive) * Need you be so offensive? ("be" is the infinitive) This is sometimes called the ''bare infinitive''. ===Other infinitives=== In addition to the ''to''-infinitive and the bare infinitive, English also knows other types of infinitive. ====Verbs followed by ''to be''==== This so called ''Passive voice infinitive'' is used after certain verbs, especially reporting verbs, in between which an object stands. Verbs commonly followed by the passive infinitive are: allege, assume, believe, consider, estimate, fail, feel, imagine, instruct, know, prove, reckon, report, rumour, say, think, understand, want. For example: * The new party failed to be elected in at last Sunday's election. * I once wanted to be a constable, but have ended up as a doctor. * She is said to be a wonderful dancer. * We estimate our expenses to be higher than anticipated. * You are rumoured to be rather difficult at times. ====The perfect infinitive==== With reporting verbs, as well as appear, claim, happen, pretend, prove, seem, tend, and so on, the ''Perfect infinitive'' (to + have + past participle) is used to emphasise one action's occurring before another. For example: * You seem to have lost weight. * He was said to have been granted a scholarship. This structure can usually be rewritten with a preparatory it + defining relative (that) clause and a perfect tense. For instance: It seems that you have lost weight. It was said that he had been granted a scholarship. ===Tenses of the infinitive=== Infinitives in English exist in many Grammatical tense. Here is a table showing these different tenses for the verb ''to cook''.
| Active | Passive | |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | (to) cook | (to) be cooked |
| Present continuous | (to) be cooking | / |
| Present perfect simple | (to) have cooked | (to) have been cooked |
| Present perfect continuous | (to) have been cooking | / |
Infinitive
Since when are "may" and "might" considered conditional prepositions? I hesistate to change things, because there are some facts in the article that surprised me when I found out that they were in agreement with what the dictionary says. "Preposition" is one of those words that is used most often by laymen in sense different from how it is used by experts (in this case, linguists). The usage here is the linguistic one: a word that comes at the beginning of a phrase-treated-as-a-word (as opposed to postpositions, which come at the end of such a phrase). In common English usage, though, "preposition" refers to only one kind of linguistic preposition--the kind that take nouns as objects to form adject-phrases or adverb-phrases. English grammarians would refer to the "may" in "you may be right" as an auxilliary verb rather than a preposition, but linguists would call it a preposition that takes a verb as an object and creates a new verb-phrase. I'm not sure how to better word that. --LDC I doubt you will find a linguist who will say it's a preposition. In "I can see", if "can" is a preposition, that "can" cannot have a past tense, as in "I could see". -- Mike Hardy Most linguistic writings I've seen refer to them as auxiliary verbs or, more specifically, as modal verbs. The term "preposition" is usually reserved for particles that modify noun phrases. - User:Gwalla 20:40, May 15, 2004 (UTC) Are these right? From the preceeding paragraph I understood the verb after dare or need is the infintive, not dare or need themselves: # I dare say you've come home just a moment ago. ("dare" is the infinitive) # Need you be so offensive? ("need" is the infinitive) *Agreed and changed -User:Wikibob | User talk:Wikibob 01:09, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC) == Infinitive with may and might == I'm not sure why verbs following may and might are classified as "infinitive", unless we mean "uninflected". If that's what we mean, then the other nine or so auxiliaries should be included: can, could, shall, should, will, would, do (and its inflected forms), must, and some other that I've forgotten. If it's not, I think the "may" and "might" cases should be dropped. Perhaps things would be cleared up if the author of this section would cite their source. I'm not changing the text because there are several possible "right answers" and I don't want to prejudge the issue. It would be nice if we could say more clearly what an infinitive is, giving diagnostics that would answer the question of whether any given verb form in a piece of text was or wasn't an example of the infinitive. There are two possible kinds of diagnostics. First there are ''formal'' tests like "Can you replace the verb with a past tense form?" (If you can, it's ''not'' an infinitive.) Second are ''semantic'' tests having to do with the meaning of the sentence -- these are much trickier. Anyway, I seem to be blithering. If anyone out there in Wikiland has a copy of the magisterial ''Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'', they should consult it on this subject. I don't have one (because it's expensive). User:ACW 20:35, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC) :How much and why? User:Lysdexia 21:30, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC) :You are absolutely right. Not only after verbs following "may" and "might" infinitives, but verbs following "can", "could", "shall", "should", "will", "do", "must", etc are also infinitives. Modal and auxiliary verbs take bare infinitives. There are certainly are authoritative sources for this and I'll provide them if anyone doubts it. --User:Rjp08773 20:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
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Infinitive
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