The Grammatical Categories of the Infinitive

The system of grammatical categories of the Infinitive is shown in the table below:

 

Correlation	Aspect Voice	Active	Passive
Non-Perfect	Common	to go to take	- to be taken
Continuous	to be going to be taking	-
Perfect	Common	to have gone to have taken	- to have been taken
Continuous	to have been going to have been taking	- -

The Category of Correlation

The category of correlation finds its expression in the opposition of non-perfect and perfect forms.

The perfect infinitive always denotes an action preceding some moment of time in the present, past or future:

 

I am glad

I was glad to have seen you again.

I shall be glad

The Category of Aspect

 

The category of aspect finds its expression in the opposition of in contrasting forms of the common aspect and the continuous aspect. The difference between the category of aspect in finite verb forms and in the infinitive is that in the infinitive it is expressed only in the active voice:

 

to speak – to be speaking

to have spoken – to have been speaking

The passive voice has practically no aspect opposition.

The semantics of the category of aspect in the infinitive is the same as in the finite verb: the continuous aspect forms denote an action in progress at some moment of time in the present, past or future.

The two aspects differ in their frequency and functioning; the continuous aspect forms are very seldom used, and cannot perform all the functions in which the common aspect forms are used. They can function only as:

1) subject (To be staying with them was a real pleasure.);

2) object (I was glad to be walking.);

3) attribute (It’s time to be leaving.);

4) part of a common verbal predicate (Now we must be getting back, or The leaves begin to be growing yellowish.)

The continuous aspect forms do not occur in the function of adverbial modifier.

 

 

The Category of Voice

The infinitive of transitive verbs has the category of voice, similar to all other verb forms:

to speak- to be spoken

to have spoken-to have been spoken

The difference between the category of voice in finite verb forms and in the infinitive is that in the infinitive it is found only in the common aspect forms.

The active infinitive points out that the action is directed from the subject (either expressed or implied), the passive infinitive indicates that the action is directed to the subject:

Active

He expected to find them very soon.

She was born to love.

I know I ought to have told you everything long ago.

Passive

They expected to be found by night fall.

She is born to be loved.

She ought to have been told of what had actually happened. However, there are cases where the active form of the non-perfect infinitive denotes an action directed towards the subject, that is although active in form it is passive in meaning:

He is to blame.

The house is to let.

The question is difficult to answer.

There was only one thing to do.

The active infinitive thus used is called retroactive. The retroactive infinitive is rather productive although in nearly all cases it can be replaced by the corresponding passive form:

He is to blame. – He is to be blamed.

There was only one thing to do. There was only one thing to be done.

Syntactical Functions of the Infinitive

The infinitive performs almost all syntactical functions characteristic of the noun, although in each of them it has certain peculiarities of its own. In all syntactical functions the infinitive may be used:

1) alone, that is, without any words depending on it:

She would like to dance.

2) as the headword of an infinitive phrase, that is, with one or more
words depending on it:

She would like to dance with him tonight.

3) as part of an infinitive predicative construction, that is, a logical
predicate to some nominal element denoting the logical subject of
the infinitive:

She would like him to dance with her.

She waited for him to dance first.

As to the functioning of single infinitives and infinitive phrases, they are identical and will therefore be used without distinction in illustrations of the syntactical functions of the infinitive. However it should be noted that in fact the infinitive phrase is much more common than the single infinitive.

 

The Infinitive as Subject

The infinitive functioning as subject may either precede the predicate or follow it. In the latter case it is introduced by the so-called introductory it, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence:

To be good is to be in harmony with oneself.

It's so silly to be fussy and jealous.

The second of these structural patterns is more common than the first. It differs from the first one semantically in that the subject is slightly more accentuated (compare for example: It's impossible to do it and To do it is impossible) and structurally in that it can be both declarative and interrogative, while the first one can only be declarative:

 

It's nice to see you again. Is it bad to love one so dearly?

It was not a good idea to bring her here. Wasn't it a waste of time to sit there?

but:
To find him still at home was a relief. ----

To see her again did not give him the usual pleasure. ----

 

 

As can be seen from the examples above, the infinitive subject in both structural patterns is used with the particle to. If there are two or more homogeneous infinitive subjects in a sentence, all of them keep the particle to:

 

To be alone, to be free from the daily interests and cruelty would be happiness to Asako.

It was awfully difficult to do or even to say nothing at all.

The function of the subject can be performed by the infinitive of any voice, aspect and correlation form, although the common aspect non-perfect active forms are naturally far more frequent than the other forms; the continuous aspect perfect active forms hardly ever occur. Here are some examples of the infinitive subject in various forms:

To expect too much is a dangerous thing.

To be walking through the fields all alone seemed an almost impossible pleasure.

To have seen her was even a more painful experience.

To be recognized, to be greeted by some local personage afforded her a joy which was very great.

To have been interrogated in such a way was a real shock to him.

The predicate of the subject expressed by an infinitive always takes the form of the 3rd person singular. As to its type, it is usually a compound nominal predicate with the link verb to be, although other link verbs may also occur. Simple or compound verbal predicates are not so common.

 

In sentences with a compound nominal predicate the predicative is commonly expressed by an adjective, a noun or less frequently by an infini­tive:

Not to go back was awful.

To acquire knowledge and to acquire it unceasingly is the first duty of the artist.

To understand is to forgive.

If the predicate of the infinitive subject is a verbal one it is usually expressed by a causative verb:

 

To talk to him bored me.

To see the struggle frightened him terribly.

It infuriated him to hear them.

There are some other verbs used as predicates in such sentences:

To write a really good book requires more time than I have.

To complete the task took him half of the day.

If in sentences with an infinitive subject the predicate takes the form of the subjunctive mood, the sentence acquires a conditional meaning, the condition being denoted by the infinitive and its consequence by the predicate:

It would be inhuman not to answer this letter (if one did not answer,... it would be inhuman).

To have said that in the eighties, or even the nineties would have given his father a fit (if he had said,... it would have given...).

The Infinitive as Predicate

The infinitive is used in predicates of several types, both nominal and verbal.