30 
THE OBJECTIVE INFINITIVE. 
in sense, after verbs of commanding, of causing, and of sense perception, in 
sentences like the following: Beow. 1920: Het <5a up beran sebelinga gestreon; 
Bede 344.21, 22: him ondweardum het secgan bset swefn 7 bset leob singan = 
260.17 a - b : iussus est . . . indicare somnium et dicere carmen;—And. 397: Lost 
nu geferian flotan userne, lid to lande; Boeth. 133.25: sume he Icet &reaga?i mid 
heardum broce = 113.142: quosdam remordet, ne longa felicitate luxurient: 
alios duris agitari, ut uirtutes animi patientiae . . . confirment; Mlj. L. S . 
512.417: se . . . man let bser rceran . . . cytan; — Bl. Horn. 15.28: we nu 
gehyrdon bis . . . godspell beforan us rcedan; Chron. 199*, 1066 E: Da be 
cyng W. geherde baet secgen. The advocates of the passive interpretation hold, 
of course, that the accusative case in the above examples is the subject of the 
infinitive, while their opponents * 1 consider it the object of the infinitive. In 
favor of the passive interpretation of the infinitive are these facts: that, as the 
examples in this chapter show, very frequently the Anglo-Saxon infinitive 
active in form, with or without an accompanying accusative, translates a Latin 
passive infinitive (with or without an accusative subject) and not infrequently 
a passive indicative; and that, in most if not all such instances of the infinitive 
after these verbs in Anglo-Saxon, the infinitive, though active in form, may in 
modern English be appropriately rendered by the passive infinitive, and the 
accusative rendered as the subject instead of the object, — a rendition likewise 
possible in most of the Germanic languages. But, despite this, I must hold 
that, to the Anglo-Saxon, the infinitive in this idiom habitually seemed active in 
sense as in form. As we shall see later, for the infinitive that is passive in form 
as well as in sense, in nearly all its uses, the Anglo-Saxon at first had next to no 
feeling, and was very slow in borrowing it from the Latin. The same thing is 
true of the Germanic people as a whole, as will be shown in Chapter XVI. 
Again, in a very large number of instances the Anglo-Saxon active infinitive 
after these verbs translates a Latin accusative and predicative active infinitive 
or a Latin active finite verb. In hundreds of passages, in the poems, in the 
more original prose, and in the translations, we find these verbs followed by an 
accusative subject to an infinitive that has at the same time an accusative 
object, — a fact that proves that there at least the infinitive is of necessity 
active in sense. Of less weight, but worthy of consideration is the fact that, 
in the alleged instances of the active infinitive used in a passive sense, very 
often (except with pronouns) the accusative has postposition — the place for 
the object accusative — rather than pre-position, as is usual with the subjec¬ 
tive accusative. Noteworthy, too, is the survival, in the colloquial “ I never 
heard tell of such a thing /-’ of this objective infinitive active in English, and its 
very frequent use, both in speech and in writing, in modern German. In a 
word, the possibility of the passive interpretation of these infinitives is not 
denied; but it is contended that the active interpretation is more consonant 
with all the facts so far discovered as to the infinitive, and is truer to the genius 
of Anglo-Saxon and of the Germanic languages in general. 
At times it is difficult to decide whether an infinitive is objective or whether 
it is adverbial or, occasionally, adjectival. These doubtful cases are indicated 
1 Among these may be mentioned: Erdmann, 1 l. c., I, pp. 200, 205; Denecke, l. c., pp. 5-6; Wunderlich, 1 
l. c., p. 125; and Smith, 2 C. A., who, p. 72, writes: “Het Sa baere settan, ‘ He bade set down the bier,’ not * He 
commanded the bier to be set down.’ The Mn. E. passive in such sentences is a loss both in force and in 
directness.” 
