Philology

Farida A. Kakzhanova

Maxim A. Prokofyev

Semantic problems of Infinitive in English language

Annotation: The article considers the semantic problem of Infinitive in English language: being a non-finite form of the verb, Infinitive possesses characteristics of both verb and noun; therefore, it is necessary to find out which of these two parts of speech prevails within Infinitive through the analysis of its morphological and syntactical characteristics.

Key words: grammar, non-finite forms, Infinitive, verb, noun.

I. Introduction: Infinitive is a complicated phenomenon in the grammar of English language, as it combines morphological and syntactical characteristics of verb and noun. As long as infinitive contains two components – noun and verb, there is a question, which of them predominates at such a hybrid notion: verb semantics or noun semantics, verb function or noun function, morphological characteristics of verb or noun.

II. Object of the research: consideration of the Infinitive characteristics in order to determine predominance of either verb or noun as its components.

Objectives of the research: 1) analysis of previously given definitions of Infinitive; 2) consideration of morphological characteristics of Infinitive; 3) consideration of syntactical characteristics of Infinitive; 4) comparison of verb and noun characteristics within Infinitive.

III. Outcome (main part): First of all, it is necessary to consider definitions of Infinitive given by different scholars.

K. Kachalova singles out some common features of the Infinitive, for all languages that possess this grammatical category:

- Infinitive is a non-finite form of the verb;

- obtains only aspect and voice forms, in passive voice there can be only Indefinite Infinitive and Perfect infinitive [4, 240]:

According to traditional grammar of English language, Infinitive is the basic form of the verb, which can have particle to.

It is also necessary to single out one more feature of infinitive which are common for all verb forms: it can be defined by an adverb, but not by an adjective [1, 241]: They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others (Austen).

According to the definition given by L. Tenier, infinitive can be called neither verb nor noun, as he writes: «…infinitive takes intermediate position between the category of verb and category of noun. It is a mixed category, middle member between these two categories, being a verb in its initial category and a noun in its resulting category, infinitive combines features of verb and noun.»

Consequently, according to L. Tenier, verb is an initial category for infinitive, so it has more characteristics of verb in its contents.

According to O. Jespersen, Infinitives «are fixed case forms of former verbal nouns» [3, 159]. At the same time infinitive does not just take transitional position in the pair «verb - noun», but also moves in the course of time within this pair: according to O. Jespersen, denoting action at first, infinitive became a verbal noun, and later obtained some more features of the verb.

Here is Jespersen’s example that shows role that can be performed by Infinitive in a sentence:

The reason is not difficult to see. – In this case subject is expressed by the noun the reason, and infinitive is an object, but it can be easily used as a subject – To see the reason is not difficult [3, 197].

According to K. Kachalova, Infinitive is a non-finite form of the verb which originates from verbal noun; features of a noun inherent to infinitive are shown mostly in performing syntactical function of a noun in a sentence.[1, 240]

In order to consider correlation of the roles of verb and noun in the category of Infinitive, it is necessary to analyze it from the position of all morphological and syntactical characteristics of both verb and noun, choose those which are available to infinitive, trace their development and diachronic changes.

Morphological categories of a noun – number, case and gender. In contemporary English language only two of them exist: number and case.

Category of number denotes amount of objects ; finite forms of the verb are correlated with respective nouns:

"It certainly seems probable." (Doyle)

"Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest." (Doyle)

Infinitive, unlike finite forms of the verb, does not correlate with respective noun in number, being invariant part of the sentence, for example:

"My uncle is to send a servant for us." (Austen)

"That would be a good scheme," said Elizabeth, "if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home." (Austen).

In Old English and Middle English languages infinitive also does not possess such morphological characteristic [4, 82-84], [5 112].

There are two cases in traditional grammar of contemporary English language: Nominative and Possessive [1, 17-21]. Infinitive does not possess such category now, but in Old English language infinitive possessed forms of two cases:

Nominative, having –an ending:

Drincan – to drink, beran – to bear;

And dative, having –enne ending:

Drincenne, berenne.

Dative case is generally used after the preposition to and has the meaning of adverbial modifier of purpose.

He com to drincenne –

He came to drink (in order to drink)

To, which used to be preposition, developed into the particle of infinitive in the end of the Old English period [5, 112].

In consequence of disappearance of unstressed ending this form is not considered as a case form, former preposition to is understood not as a preposition, but as a special particle for infinitive. Thus, the preposition loses its initial meaning of purpose and destination and can be used in other speech situations which do not involve any of those meanings. In contemporary English language to is a formal sign of the infinitive. [3, 197-198] [6]

In Middle English period coincidence of two infinitive forms – Nominative and Dative – took place. Old English Infinitive in Dative, having the meaning of purpose or destination expressed with the help of to, in Middle English loses Old English unstressed ending of its Dative form, which leads to its coincidence with Nominative case of infinitive.

For example: ОЕ «writan»- to write and to writenne in order to write > МЕ writen

Particle to keeps the same meaning in contemporary English language: He came to drink, He wanted to see the professor - here finite verbs express the action itself, and infinitives express the purpose of the action.

Thus we can single out one special feature of infinitive as a non finite form of the verb – it expresses action which can be reason or purpose for another action expressed by finite form. If the purpose of the action is not an action, but a thing or person, infinitive is replaced by a noun [7]:

He came to take the money – He came for money.

Thus, in Old English language infinitive obtained the category of case, which is a morphological category of noun, but lost this characteristic by our time and does not have it nowadays.

Existence of another morphological category of noun – category of gender - is called in question by B.A. Ilyish: he completely denies it on the basis of that fact, that gender classification is not shown in the morphology of the word in any way; K. Kachalova singles out this category with one amendment – gender of a noun can be understood only from its meaning [1, 22]. This morphological category is not singled out in Old English language too [5, 93].

As the meaning of infinitive possesses characteristic of noun [3, 159], infinitive takes only function from noun, therefore it cannot possess the category of gender.

Taking into consideration morphological categories of infinitive in diachronic aspect, it is necessary to mention that previously infinitive had some morphological characteristics of noun, but nowadays it has only syntactical characteristics.

It is necessary to consider all functions that infinitive can perform in a sentence, i.e. what member of a sentence it can be, based on the following examples:

Function of a subject:

To skate is pleasant. [1, 240]

In this case infinitive answers the question “what?” and the main idea is “thingness”, or corporeality, of the action; the speaker expresses the common fact of skating, but not the process. Here the function of verb is expressed in denomination of action, but not object, otherwise it would be expressed by noun;

Function of an object:

I want to read the book.

And if we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this unknown visitor. (Doyle)

Speaker shows an intention to do something, but the action expressed by infinitive is not correlated with the subject:

I want to read – He wants to read – They want to read.

Infinitive does not change its meaning depending on changing subject’s morphological characteristics, unlike finite forms of verb.

If we take the infinitive away from the sentence, it does not lose its syntactical integrity. It just loses the very part of the whole sense which is expressed by infinitive: I want the book – the sentence complete from the syntactical point of view; however, if we take away the verb, syntactical integrity of the sentence of broken: I to read the book, which also means that infinitive expresses abstract action. Another verbal characteristic here is the presence of direct object the book, which cannot be added to noun.

Function of an attribute:

I asked him to help me. [1, 240]

Here infinitive expresses similar characteristics, especially adding of direct object.

Function of an adverbial modifier:

I went to the station to see off a friend. [1, 240]

Function of a predicate:

Nominal part of a predicate: Your duty was to inform me about it immediately.

Part of a nominal predicate: She began to translate the article.

Being any part of a sentence, infinitive expresses similar characteristics: ones of a verb – expressing of an action, but not an object, presence of direct object; ones of a noun – abstractiveness of an action, non-coordination with other parts of the sentence.

It is also necessary to consider morphological characteristics of verb: tense, aspect, number, mood, voice.

Infinitive does not possess the category of tense – the verbal category which defines correlation between the time when the action has been done and the time when the action is spoken about [8, 130-132].

Here are some examples:

He tried to find a job (Past Indefinite).

He tries to find a job (Present Indefinite).

He will try to find a job (Future Indefinite).

In these examples infinitive does not change in the same way as the verb, staying invariant part of the sentence; the action expressed by infinitive does not show time when another action took, takes or will take place.

The category of aspect, which is also possessed by the verb, shows discreteness of an action and can be expressed by infinitive.

Aspect of the infinitive transmits some peculiarities of the action: process (Continuous Aspect), completeness (Perfect Aspect), fact (Infinitive Aspect).

For example:

I remembered to invite her (Indefinite).

I remembered to have invited (Perfect)

I remembered to be inviting (Continuous)

Aspect is given without giving the time of performing the action, thus infinitive does not lose its time indeterminacy.

Category of voice of the verb also can be expressed by infinitive. Voice is morphological category of the verb which shows another kind of correlation between the subject and the action done by subject or done over the subject by someone else. Infinitive can express both Active an Passive Voice:

They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! (Austen)

	Active	Passive
Indefinite	To ask	To be asked
Continuous	To be asking	-
Perfect	To have asked	To have been asked
Perfect Continuous	To have been asking	-

The category of mood implies changing of the word and thus cannot be expressed by infinitive as an unchangeable form.

IV. Conclusion. According to what has been said above, we can say that in contemporary English language Infinitive has predominating morphological characteristics of verb, which form semantics of Infinitive; its features as noun express syntactical characteristics, that is why Infinitive expresses more process, but not thingness of an object; that is why infinitive cannot be replaced by noun.

Bibliography:

1. Kachalova K., Izrailevich E. Practical grammar of English language. - М.: Unves, 2005. – 717 p.

2. Tenier L. Fundamentals of structural syntax. — М.: Progress,1988. – 656 p.

3. Jespersen O. Philosophy of grammar. – М.: Publishing house of foreign literature,1958. – 403 с.

4 Ilyish B.A. History of English language. – М.: Высш. шк., 1968. – 420 p.

5 Rastorguyeva T.A. History of English language – М.: AST,
2003. – 352 p.

6. Ivanova I.P., Burlakova V.V. Theoretical grammar of English language. - М.: Высш. шк., 1981. – 288 p.

7. Smirnitskiy A.I. Lectures on the history of English language. – М.: 1998.

8. Ilyish B.A. Structure of the English Language. – Leningrad, 1971. – 367 p.

Examples borrowed from:

Austen, Jane “Pride and prejudice”

Doyle, Arthur Conan “Hound of the Baskervilles”