Verbs and Verbals (5)

有工作忙作借口，人就变懒了，来"快乐英语"也少了。但周末到了，没做完的还得接着做。这一帖小叙不定式的来历，以及再次复习带to不定式作宾语的功能。这一帖难点不多。

 

In this section, we will address two issues regarding the infinitive of English verbs:  (1) where does the infinitive come from and why it is called infinitive, and (2) the verb combination:  verb + to infinitive

 

Why do all the verbs in English have the infinitive form?  In fact, the Latin-based or Latin-related western languages all have infinitive forms for their verbs.  Why?  Why is it called infinitive?  Do we also have finite forms for verbs?  Well, the answer is again in Latin.  We don't want to get into too much of the details of Latin history, but a simple version of the where-it-comes story is that when a verb is "invented", it only carries the meaning of an action or a state of being.  But such a verb word does not indicate who does the action or whose state of being it refers to.  In the early Latin, Latinists did not "invent" personal pronouns like the equivalents of English "I, you (singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural), they", to indicate who was the doer (subject) of an action (verb) in a sentence.  Instead, they "invented" verb conjugation rules by using different verb endings (called personal endings) to indicate who did the action[1].  Take the verb to love as an example.  The counterpart of to love in Latin is amare.  In this Latin verb, ending "-re" indicates the infinitive form, "ama-" is the verb stem.  To make statements in present indicative tense, Latin "invented" six personal endings (verb conjugation):  -o = I, -a = you (singular), -t = he/she/it, -mus = we, -tis = you (plural), -nt = they.  These six present indicative personal endings are used to replace the infinitive ending "-re" to construct meaningful sentences, which we list in the table below:

 

amare (infinitive) = to love (infinitive)
Amo*.	I love.	Amamus.	We love.
Amas.	You (singular) love.	Amatis.	You (plural) love.
Amat.	He/She loves.	Amant.	They love.

                   * By rule, it's supposed to be amao and actually it was amao in the old Latin.  The second 'a" was dropped through Latin's                 evolution and amao became amo.

 

Such conjugated verb forms are finite and used as predicates indicating the doer of the action. 

 

Verbs of ancient English needed to be conjugated in a fashion similar to the Latin one above (again, we don't want to get into the nitty-gritties of ancient English conjugation) .  However, as we can see, there is not as much of verb conjugation in modern English.  Only in the verb form of third person singular (He/She loves) can we see the trace of this old tradition. 

 

The verb conjugation changes the verb form from infinitive to finite one which can be then used as the predicate form in a sentence.  Yet, there is still one more problem.  In the sentence of "Amat = He/She loves", we know that the doer of the action (love) is a third person singular, but we have no way to know whether it is He or She (or even It) who loves.  To rule out this ambiguity, personal pronouns are "invented" and therefore we have now "I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they". 

 

We now can say that the term infinitive means that the specific verb form as a predicate in a sentence is not determined yet.  Compared to infinitive form, the finite form is just a form of a verb conjugated according to person (the doer of the verb), number (singular or plural), tense (past, present, future), voice (active or passive), and mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive) in a sentence. 

 

However, when it is not used as a predicate describing the subject of a sentence, the infinitive can also be used in a sentence taking various grammatical roles.  Let's briefly look at what grammatical roles the infinitive verbal can play in English.

 

"infinitive" can play the following functions:

 

1.         Use as subject (like a noun):

            To make her happy is taken by him as the only purpose of his living[2].

            It's great to have heard from you.

            It's important to inform everyone of the party time.

 

2.         Use as predicate subject complement (after linkage verbs):

            The purpose of rest of his life is to make her happy.

 

3.         Use as adjective to modify a noun:

            She assigns to herself the daily chore to complete and always sticks to her plan.

 

4.         Use as adverb to modify a verb, another adverb, an adjective, or to modify the whole sentence:

            I eat to live; and he lives to eat.

            To have done all the homework, the boy goes to see his friends and enjoys his weekend.

            You are so late and in fact it's too late to get you on board[3].

            He has done so much for her, but still not enough to please and satisfy her.

            He is so diligent as to keep everything on schedule.

            I'm sorry to keep you waiting[4].

            In order to learn English well, you must spend a lot of time on English grammar.

 

5.         Use as object of transitive verbs:

            I can't afford to pay for such a luxury vehicle.

           Since SAT is so important to any high school student, he can't afford not to study for it.

 

The point 5 above is worth emphasizing once again.  We often term it the verb+ to infinitive combination, which is a common phenomenon of English verbs.  A brief review is provided in the following:

 

Verb + to Infinitive (verb combination)

 

Many verbs are followed by "to + infinitive" as object (s) or part of object(s).

            I learned to drive when I was 16.

            My boss asked the secretary to stay for dinner[5].

            I love to study various language phenomena to increase my writing skills.

            She hates to learn grammatical rules.

 

Below is a list of verbs that are followed by "to infinitive" phrases (non-exhaustive):

            agree                            guarantee                      refuse

            aim                               happen                         seek

            appear                          help                              seem

            arrange                         hesitate                         swear

            ask                               hope                             tend

            attempt                         learn                             threaten

            beg                               long                              train

            can't afford                   manage                         try

            can't wait                      need                             turn out

            cause                            neglect                          undertake

            choose                         offer                              want

            claim                            omit                              decide

            plan                              wish                             demand           

            prepare                        (would) hate                 expect

            pretend                         (would) like                  fail

            promise                        (would) love                 forget

            prove                           (would) prefer              care

            chance                          consent                        conspire

            dare                             deserve                        endeavor         

            intend                           mean                            remain

            rush                              struggle                        wait

 

Maybe a few more examples will help you study and get a good feeling or understanding of them.

 

1.         He believes that hard working would guarantee him to be successful.

2.         He will refuse to listen to her shenanigans from now on. 

3.         She aimed to become world-wide well-known.

4.         He seeks to have a chance to talk to that boy.

5.         She appears to be qualified for her job.

6.         She seems to want to go shopping.

7.         She didn’t even hesitate to leave him when he was in trouble.

8.         He swears not to smoke any more, but few would believe what he says.

9.         He hopes to meet her someday somewhere in the future.

10.       We tended to work more and more hours each day

11.       He learned how to drive safely.

12.       He threatened not to talk to her.

13.       They all longed to go back to their hometown to see their parents.

14.       She simply can’t afford to watch TV soap opera two hours everyday.>>

15.       She arranged to set up that trap for him to fall in.

16.       She managed to motivate everyone in the team to get the project done in time.

17.       He needs to put himself together and move on.

18.       That poisoned food caused his dog to be killed.

19.       Don’t neglect to water my plants.

20.       She forgot to deliver promises she made[6].

 

Not enough?  You are welcome to try and come up more of your own examples.

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[1] In order to make an distinction between unconjugated verbs and conjugated verbs, another set of verb endings was established in Latin to indicate the infinitive form of verbs (-re is one of them) before they are conjugated and used in sentences.  In English, the little article "to" is place in front of the base form of a verb to indicate the infinitive form. 

[2] In such a sentence, since the infinitive phrase used as the subject is considered too long, we use the "it is..." to replace the original sentence.  So this sentence is equivalent as "it is taken by him as the only purpose of his living to  make her happy."

 

[3] Did you know that "...too (adjective) to infinitive..." is a negative sentence?

[4] You can also say: "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting".  Do you know the grammatical difference?

[5] note:  the negative "not" and interrogative words placed in front of "to" are considered part of "to infinitive" phrase: I learned how to drive when I was 15.  Or, My boss asked the secretary not to go away.

[6] "She forgot delivering her promises" is different in meaning than "She forgot to deliver her promises".  See the next section of my notes.