70 
THE OBJECTIVE INFINITIVE. 
tive. Again, Dr. Wiilfing duly records that certain verbs govern both an un¬ 
inflected and an inflected infinitive, but he offers no explanation of that fact. 
Helpful, too, is this statement by Dr. Henry Sweet, in his A New English 
Grammar, II, p. 118: “ The substitution of the supine [= inflected infinitive] 
for the infinitive [= uninflected infinitive] began in Old English itself. Thus 
the supine of purpose, as in hie comon 3cet land to sceawienne, 1 they came to 
spy out the land/ gradually supplanted the older infinitive with many verbs 
of desiring, intending, attempting, etc., so that while such a verb as willan, 
1 will/ continued — as it still does in Modern English — to take the infinitive 
only, other verbs of similar meaning, such as wilnian, ‘ desire/ together with 
such verbs as onginnan, 1 undertake/ ‘ begin/ began to take the supine as well 
as the infinitive.” Nor is Dr. Sweet’s view in essential conflict with that given 
by me above: he mentions here only one factor, while I have discussed in addi¬ 
tion other factors. 
Finally, the quotation from Dr. Sweet raises the interesting question as to 
whether, in the objective use, the uninflected infinitive or the inflected was the 
original idiom in Anglo-Saxon. Dr. Sweet seems to declare for the former, as 
does Dr. Kenyon, who, in his The Syntax of the Infinitive in Chaucer , p. 100, 
writes: “ In 0. E. [= A. SJ the simple infinitive seems to have been the original 
construction, but the prepositional came in early.” My own view, as implic¬ 
itly indicated in the exposition of the objective infinitive with the various 
groups of verbs, is that, while the uninflected infinitive was by far the commoner 
form and was with most verbs the original construction, the inflected infinitive 
was with other verbs not uncommon, and was with these verbs the original con¬ 
struction. Indeed, Dr. Kenyon, l. c., p. 100, considerably modifies his first 
statement above given, as immediately thereafter he adds: “ Aside from the 
general tendency to substitute the prepositional for the simple infinitive, the 
prepositional is used in M. E. after many words like commeven, compellen, 
constreynen, driven, enclynen, and the like, after which the original force of the 
preposition to is still evident and appropriate, and after which to with noun 
objects is also used, as in Bo. V, p. 3, 166: constreineth hem to a hitydinge . . . 
This is true of verbs of causing, such as maken, techen, etc., but not of verbs of 
perception, like sen, heren, etc., which still have the simple infinitive in Chaucer 
as in O. E. 
“ The same relation between the prepositional infinitive and the preposi¬ 
tions to and for with nouns can be seen also in connection with verbs which 
take the complementary infinitive (see p. 88, above). It is perhaps noteworthy 
that there, in connection with auxiliary verbs where such an analogy between 
to + inf. and to + nouns as R. A. 597, I entende to nothing But . . . for to 
kembe and tresse me, did not work, and also here in the case of verbs of percep¬ 
tion, the simple infinitive never gave place to the prepositional to any extent. 
This suggests that the great spread of the prepositional infinitive was not wholly 
due, perhaps only slightly, to a general substitution of the latter for the simple 
infinitive, but w r as rather due to an extension of the original construction of the 
prepositional infinitive as more closely related to the construction of preposi¬ 
tion + abstract nouns. This possibility is to be considered also in connection 
with the spread of the prepositional infinitive as subject, which, as we have seen 
under Adjectives, was probably greatly enhanced by a transference of the 
dependent infinitive to the subject relation, as in it is good to do. See pp. 49 ff.” 
