What are infinitives?

[GreyRabbit]

What are infinitives used for? What's the function? Is it to convey a certain meaning? I looked it up in the dictionary, but I don't understand how to explain how it's used in everyday speech. We say adjectives help give detail, but what do you say for infinitives?

I also don't understand where the infinitive is in the bold part: "You must have been waiting a long time."
Or how "be done" is an infinitive.

And in the sentence "I'm used to sleeping in late" is "to sleeping" an infinitive? What is the "to" in that sentence? Infinitive, preposition, something else?

Pleeeeease please please help! I'm so confused!!
Thanks!!

 

[philo2009]

What are infinitives used for? What's the function? Is it to convey a certain meaning? I looked it up in the dictionary, but I don't understand how to explain how it's used in everyday speech. We say adjectives help give detail, but what do you say for infinitives?

I also don't understand where the infinitive is in the bold part: "You must have been waiting a long time."
Or how "be done" is an infinitive.

And in the sentence "I'm used to sleeping in late" is "to sleeping" an infinitive? What is the "to" in that sentence? Infinitive, preposition, something else?

Pleeeeease please please help! I'm so confused!!
Thanks!!

First, a general outline:

An infinitive is the name given to the base (i.e. uninflected) form of a verb when it functions as a nonfinite verbal element, namely when it occurs after certain prepositions, most notably 'to'*, or after an auxiliary verb. Thus the boldfaced forms of the following

He wanted to go to the fair.
Does she do anything besides complain?
Can you help me?
Do you like her?

are all infinitives.

Although properly reserved for the verb form itself, on account of the great frequency of the [to + infinitive] combination, the term ‘infinitive’ is often popularly applied to the entire two-word phrase, with the term ‘bare infinitive’ used to distinguish the one-word form.

Infinitives (with or without a preceding ‘to’) serve 4 major grammatical functions:

1. As COMPLEMENTS (traditionally labeled ‘dependents’) to auxiliary and other verbs
2. As ADJECTIVALS, e.g. ‘to remember’ in It was a day to remember. (‘to remember’ here meaning ‘memorable’)
3. As ADVERBIALS, e.g. ‘to be’ in To be honest, I’ve never even been there. (Cf. Honestly,...)
4. As NOMINALS, e.g. both infinitives of For a Viking, to die in battle was to be destined for glory.

Secondly, to answer your two specific queries:

(1) The infinitive of 'must have been waiting' is 'have' (complementing modal auxiliary 'must')

(2) No, 'sleeping' in the phrase you cite is a gerund.

*N.B. Not all linguists accept the 'to' that precedes an infinitive (as opposed to e.g. that which precedes 'sleeping' in your example) as a true preposition. Given, however, both that it is incontrovertibly one in origin, and that no other word class even remotely suitable for its classification exists, it seems prudent to term it, at the very least, an 'etymological preposition'.

 

[5jj]

I can't improve on Philo's explanation, but I'll just add that constructions such as I'm used to sleeping in late and I look forward to seeing you often confuse students, who are so used to seeing verbs followed by a gerund or a to-infinitive (I enjoy skiing, I want to ski),that they want to produce[STRIKE] I'm used to sleep[/STRIKE] and [STRIKE]I look forward to see[/STRIKE].

These students, rightly, believe that forms such as [STRIKE]to sleeping[/STRIKE]and[STRIKE] to seeing [/STRIKE]are not parts of the verb.

What is happening in these constructions is that be/get used and look forward collocate with the preposition to, which is followed by a noun or a 'verbal noun' (gerund).

So, we can analyse this as :

. I look-forward to seeing you. (I look forward to your visit, the meeting, etc.)
NOT: I look-forward to-seeing you

 

[GreyRabbit]

Thank you guys so much! I really appreciate it!

 

[Pokemon]

3. As ADVERBIALS, e.g. ‘to be’ in To be honest, I’ve never even been there. (Cf. Honestly,...)

In my opinion, 'to be honest' isn't an adverbial. An adverbial modifies a predicate. This syntactic group does not. In my school of linguistics it's called a parenthesis. Here is an example of an adverbial:
To pass the exam, you'll have to work hard. You'll have to work hard (for what purpose?) to pass the exam. This is an adverbial of purpose. You can't even put an identifying question to 'to be honest' in your sentence. Which type of adverbial is it?

Oh, you say 'to be' alone is an adverbial?? No, I don't think so. This whole fragment 'to be honest' should syntactically be treated as one unit and classified as an infinitive phrase used as parenthesis.

 

[5jj]

In my opinion, 'to be honest' isn't an adverbial. [...]Which type of adverbial is it?
.

One line of thought is that it is a sentence adverbial, which modifies the sentence as a whole, or a clause within the sentence. Along with such other sentence adverbial expressions as frankly, honestly, with respect, personally, and if I may say so, it is classed as a style disjunct, which express comments by the speakers on the style or manner in which they are speaking.

See:
Sidney Greenbaum's article on Adverbials in McArthur, Tom (1992) The Oxford Companion to the English Language,Oxford: OUP;
Chapter 8, The semantics and grammar of adverbials in Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartik, Jan (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman.

 

[philo2009]

In my opinion, 'to be honest' isn't an adverbial. An adverbial modifies a predicate. This syntactic group does not. In my school of linguistics it's called a parenthesis.

Fair enough. In mine, however (essentially that of Quirk, Greenbaum et al.), it is classified as an adverbial disjunct (while adverbials directly modifying the verb phrase are termed 'adjuncts').

Some other schools of grammar favour the term sentence adverbial.

Regarding the issue of phrase partition, the infinitive is cited here as adverbial in its capacity as head of the infinitive phrase, essentially just as 'boy' can be cited as the central nominal element in the noun phrase 'a small boy'. Naturally, however, the complementary adjective 'honest' is required for the syntactic completeness of the adverbial in the context of a sentence, just as 'a small' would be needed for the syntactic completeness of the noun phrase.

 

[BobK]

One line of thought is that it is a sentence adverbial, which modifies the sentence as a whole, or a clause within the sentence. Along with such other sentence adverbial expressions as frankly, honestly, with respect, personally, and if I may say so, it is classed as a style disjunct, which express comments by the speakers on the style or manner in which they are speaking.

See:
Sidney Greenbaum's article on Adverbials in McArthur, Tom (1992) The Oxford Companion to the English Language,Oxford: OUP;
Chapter 8, The semantics and grammar of adverbials in Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartik, Jan (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman.

Thanks for those references. :cheers:

b

 

[Pokemon]

(1) The infinitive of 'must have been waiting' is 'have' (complementing modal auxiliary 'must')

There is another thing that struck me as unusual when you seperated 'have' from the rest of the analytic form. 'Have been waiting' is complete grammatical form - the perfect continuous infinitive of the verb 'wait'. If you consider 'have' as an independent form, how would you classify the 'been' and 'waiting'? And if I say: "To have done it was a mistake', what is 'to have done' in your opinion? In your school of thought do you recognize that the infinitive can have different aspect/voice forms?

P.S. I hope the last message by the moderator wasn't an invitation to end up this interesting discussion. Thank you, Bobk, I don't drink at this hour, too early for me.

 

[philo2009]

There is another thing that struck me as unusual when you seperated 'have' from the rest of the analytic form. 'Have been waiting' is complete grammatical form - the perfect continuous infinitive of the verb 'wait'. If you consider 'have' as an independent form, how would you classify the 'been' and 'waiting'?

Your question highlights the difference between parsing a sentence (identifying the function of each individual word, as it relates to that which precedes/follows it) and phrase analysis, concerned primarily with assigning functions to groups of words. Both naturally have their uses in different situations.

Thus, if parsing the phrase 'must have been waiting', we would get

MUST: finite (modal auxiliary) verb
HAVE: (auxiliary) infinitive, complementing 'must'
BEEN: (auxiliary) past participle of 'be', complementing 'have'
WAITING: present participle, complementing 'been'.

A large-scale phrase analysis, on the other hand, would simply label the entire group a 'finite verb phrase' - a description that might often, depending on one's purpose, be sufficient.

Naturally, however, phrase analysis permits partition of phrases in a number of ways: the component 'have been waiting' is an infinitive phrase (i.e. a phrase headed by an infinitive), 'been waiting' a participle phrase, until eventually, with participle 'waiting', we have returned to the level of simple parsing.

 

[Pokemon]

"To be honest", it all makes me feel like an Alice in Wonderland. However it's thrilling to find oneself in a different world.

Naturally, however, phrase analysis permits partition of phrases in a number of ways: the component 'have been waiting' is an infinitive phrase (i.e. a phrase headed by an infinitive), 'been waiting' a participle phrase, until eventually, with participle 'waiting', we have returned to the level of simple parsing.

I already wrote in another thread that not making distinction between lexico-grammatical classes of words and their roles in a sentence results in blurring the distinction between morphology and syntax, and eventually between language and speech. It actually turns the wheel of history back to before the Saussure times.
A "phrase" is a syntactical unit and belongs to speech, while a grammatical form is a morphological one and belongs to language. A phrase consists of several words joined together not only grammatically but also lexically. For example, "to work hard", "good weather", etc., where each word has its lexical meaning and the meaning of the phrase is, to a certain extent, the sum of its parts. An analytical grammatical form consists of several elements joined together on a purely grammatical basis: e.g. "is made, have made, have been making, etc."
''(To) have been waiting" is an analytical grammatical form, not a phrase. It's lexical meaning is expressed only through 'waiting'. The other elements only contribute the idea of an event having been in progress for some time before the given moment, which is 100% grammar.
Of course, you can split a grammatical form into smaller elements, or parse it, as you put it, but that doesn't deny the existence of an analytical form as such.

 

[Tdol]

Doesn't this rather assume that your definitions are universally recognised and accepted?

 

[Pokemon]

Doesn't this rather assume that your definitions are universally recognised and accepted?

This is what I believe in, and this concept is shared by a lot of my collegues, and that's what we teach our students. I don't know how widely it is recognized and accepted around the world. Many men, many minds. On the other hand, as is known, the truth is born of arguments.

 

[5jj]

This is an interesting point of view, but there are others.

It seems from what I have read that many agree with Quirk et al that, “the infinitive ((to) call, the –ing participle (calling) and the –ed participle (called) are the nonfinite forms of the verb. Hence any phrase in which one of these verb forms is the first or only word (disregarding the infinitive marker to) is a nonfinite verb phrase.” (My emphasis). Must have been waiting is analysed as a finite verb phrase

On the other hand, in Chomskyan analysis of an utterance such a:

He must have been waiting for a long time,

The VP (verb phrase) is wait (V) a long time (Advl). Must, have, been and -ing are all parts of AUX (the auxiliary).

Then again, for many people, a phrase is (in the words of the COD) a group of words forming a conceptual unit, but not a sentence. Many writers on language appear to be happy to use phrase in this way, which appears to be your way, when there is no possibility of confusion.

Thus we appear to have at least three uses of the word phrase. Most grammarians appear to have been working with these for many years without being fazed by it.

The point I am tortuously leading to is that a statement such as your: ''(To) have been waiting" is an analytical grammatical form, not a phrase” is to suggest that most writers on grammar over the last half century have been wrong. Perhaps it would have been better if different terms had been agreed on at the outset; perhaps analytical grammatical form may become generally accepted one day. At the moment, however, to have been waiting is (accepted by many authorities) as (some form of) a phrase.


As you say: Many men, many minds. On the other hand, as is known, the truth is born of arguments.

 

[Pokemon]

This is an interesting point of view, but there are others.

It seems from what I have read that many agree with Quirk et al that, “the infinitive ((to) call, the –ing participle (calling) and the –ed participle (called) are the nonfinite forms of the verb. Hence any phrase in which one of these verb forms is the first or only word (disregarding the infinitive marker to) is a nonfinite verb phrase.” (My emphasis). Must have been waiting is analysed as a finite verb phrase

Let me give you simple example.

"Peter has been crying"

What would you call the underlined part of the sentence? The present perfect continuous tense, which is one of the finite forms (not phrases) of the verb 'cry'. The lexical meaning of this form is expressed in the root morpheme -cry-. The grammatical meaning - in 'has been -ing'. Since the grammatical meaning is expressed by means of auxiliary words it is an analytical form. (An example of synthetic form - 'cried' where the grammatical meaning is expressed within the word). Isn't it obvious?

 

[5jj]

Let me give you simple example.

"Peter has been crying"

What would you call the underlined part of the sentence? The present perfect continuous tense, which is one of the finite forms (not phrases) of the verb 'cry'. The lexical meaning of this form is expressed in the root morpheme -cry-. The grammatical meaning - in 'has been -ing'. Since the grammatical meaning is expressed by means of auxiliary words it is an analytical form. (An example of synthetic form - 'cried' where the grammatical meaning is expressed within the word). Isn't it obvious?

Philo and I have already answered this.

For Quirk, and me, - it's a finite verb phrase.
For Chomsky it's a VP (verb phrase)
Many others would call this conceptual unit a phrase.

I would also agree that in 'has been crying', the three words represent the present perfect form of the verb 'cry'.

I am not going to say that it is not a phrase, and you are not going to say that it is. We'd better agree to differ and stop now before we bore everyone else to tears.

 

[Pokemon]

I am not going to say that it is not a phrase, and you are not going to say that it is. We'd better agree to differ and stop now before we bore everyone else to tears.

I wonder if you realize that the argument we having is not about how to label something - a form or a phrase. The real issue is much more fundamental: whether you make distinction between morphology and syntax, language and speech, system and function, or they are all the same to you. By the way, the fact that English is typologically an analytical language was established as early as in the 19th century, and I've never heard anybody question that. I'm not an expert in Chomsky's generative linguistic theory you refer to but his teaching seems to me rather a narrow-minded approach: no semantics, no sound morphology, only tranformation formulas and syntactic diagrams.

 

[philo2009]

POKEMON wrote:

A "phrase" is a syntactical unit...belongs to language.

You are drawing a distinction between 'language' and 'speech' that most of us simply do not recognize, or at any rate consider useful for practical English-teaching purposes. The questioner originally asked, you will note, simply "what are infinitives?", not "what are infinitives in the context of speech as opposed to that of language?"

A phrase consists...which is 100% grammar.

You also appear to abide by a definition of 'phrase' that differs in some fundamental respects from its standard acceptation, i.e. 'a group of words forming an immediate syntactic constituent of a clause' (Collins Millenium, p.1169). Thus, by the lights of the standard definition, 'is made, have made' etc. all qualify as phrases. There is absolutely no requirement for a phrase to include more than one, for want of a better term 'content word', which - correct me if I'm wrong - seems to constitute your understanding of it.


Of course, you can split a grammatical form into smaller elements, or parse it, as you put it, but that doesn't deny the existence of an analytical form as such.

Nor, as I have attempted to make clear, does it in any way seek to. The two differing levels of analysis simply serve different purposes. For the non-native learner, however (to helping whom this forum is dedicated) I would submit that parsing is more likely to be of assistance, since common sense would seem sufficient to indicate that one can hardly deal in large chunks of language until one has successfully mastered the basic elemental structures from which they are formed.

 

[philo2009]

This is what I believe in, and this concept is shared by a lot of my collegues, and that's what we teach our students. I don't know how widely it is recognized and accepted around the world.

Do you not think it might be wise to make some vague attempt to establish this before you teach it to your students??

:roll:

 

[philo2009]

I wonder if you realize that the argument we having is not about how to label something - a form or a phrase. The real issue is much more fundamental: whether you make distinction between morphology and syntax, language and speech, system and function, or they are all the same to you.

I really don't know how you can say this, when the criteria for qualifying as a form or a phrase are precisely what you have been arguing about up to this point!

But never mind: you raise issues here that, as interesting as they might be in themselves as part of a wide-ranging, philosophical debate among natives about language, are frankly likely to be of little real use to non-native learners, taught - as the majority still are - in accordance with a set of well established grammatical concepts and fairly standard terminology, who want a simple answer to a simple question (such as "what is an infinitive?").

I would respectfully suggest, before our poor questioner - assuming (s)he has not already stopped reading - becomes more, rather than less, confused, that this discussion be moved to a separate thread.

I, for one, hereby take my leave!

EOC