CHAPTER I. 
THE SUBJECTIVE INFINITIVE. 
A. THE ACTIVE INFINITIVE. 
The active infinitive as the Subject of a finite verb is less common than I 
had anticipated, despite the fact that I include under this head sentences having 
hit as the grammatical subject and the infinitive as the logical subject. As 
the subject of an active verb the active infinitive occurs about 356 times; as 
the subject of a passive verb, about 48 times. Despite the relative infrequency 
of the subjective infinitive, my number is appreciably larger than that of pre¬ 
vious investigators, chiefly because of my inclusion of the inflected infinitive 
in clauses introduced by a pronoun, — a matter discussed on pages 9 f. below. 
i. With Active Finite Verb. 
I consider first the active infinitive as the subject of active verbs. Contrary 
to what one is led to expect from most of the Anglo-Saxon grammars, the sub¬ 
jective infinitive is usually inflected: of the 356 subjective infinitives found, 
252 are inflected, and 104 are uninflected. In the prose 322 examples occur, 
of which 226 are inflected; in the poetry 34 examples occur, of which 26 are 
inflected. The subjective infinitive is found in Early West Saxon, in the 
Chronicle , in the Laws, in Late West Saxon, and, as we have seen, in the poetry. 
Usually the subjective infinitive follows its verb, as in Gu. 1039 inis me 
earfede to geSolianne beodnes wilian) and Bede 2.10 (hit is god godne to herianne 
7 yfelne to leanne = no Latin), but occasionally it precedes, as in Mat. 20.23 
(to sitta?me on mine swibran healfe, obbe on wynstran, nys me inc to syllanne 
= sedere autem ad dexteram meam vel sinistram non est meum dare). The 
postposition of the infinitive is largely due, no doubt, to the fact that, as already 
stated, the clause is often introduced by the pronoun hit, and that the infinitive 
occurs as the subject chiefly of impersonal verbs and of impersonal verb 
phrases. Possibly, too, the postposition of the infinitive is due in part to the 
fact that in the Latin originals of the Anglo-Saxon translations this order often 
occurs. As will be seen later, the frequent postposition of the infinitive, 
especially in phrases made up of the verb to be plus an adjective, tends to cause 
the use of the inflected infinitive instead of the uninflected; or, rather, this 
tendency results from the greater proximity of the infinitive to the adjective 
consequent upon the postposition. 
The subjective infinitive that is active in form seems to me habitually active 
in sense. 
I. The uninflected infinitive only is found as the subject with the following 
verbs, each of which occurs only a few times in this construction: — 
becuman, happen. gelystan, please. geweorban, happen. 
beon, be, plus an adjective geftyncan, seem, good. 
(1) Of Pleasantness: 
softs, soft, pleasant. 
