CHAPTER III. 
OTHER SUBSTANTIVAL USES OF THE INFINITIVE. 
Aside from the Subjective and the Objective uses of the infinitive in Anglo- 
Saxon, we find occasionally the following additional Substantival Uses: (A) as 
a Predicate Nominative and (B) as an Appositive. Of (C) the infinitive as the 
Object of a Preposition, I find no clear example. 
A. AS A PREDICATE NOMINATIVE. 
The use of the infinitive as a predicate nominative is specifically denied to 
Anglo-Saxon by some scholars, as by Buchtenkirch, l. c., p. 9; by Ortmann, 
l. c., p. 53; and by Redepenning, l. c., p. 84. But Matzner, l. c., Ill, p. 23, 
cites what he considers an example of the uninflected infinitive as predicate 
nominative from Thorpe’s Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, p. 112: Me ys geftuht Godes 
beowdom betweoh bas craeftas ealdorscipe healdan. Possibly healdan is a predi¬ 
cate nominative here; but, as has been pointed out by Professor Albert S. Cook, 1 
it may be considered as predicative to an accusative subject; or, as the context, 
seems to me to make more probable, it may be used predicatively with the 
quasi-auxiliary, ys ge&uht: see p. 82 below. In his The Gerund in Old 
English , p. 35, Dr. T. J. Farrar writes: “The only instance of the Gerund 
as a pure sentence-predicate is in poems 325.4: 2 to findanne naes to obfeorr- 
ganne and to witanne naes to obwyrceanne and to lufianne naes to oblaedanne.” 
Dr. Farrar does not quote the first part of this clause, swa ic 8ence 8is feoh, —- 
a fact that may in part account for his interpretation? At any rate, I take 
these infinitives to be objects of Sence, and naes to be an adverb instead of a 
verb. As indicated, most, if not all, of the examples cited below, admit of a 
different explanation. I quote all of the less doubtful examples that I have 
observed, giving first the uninflected infinitive and then the inflected. 
(1) Uninflected: 
Bl. Horn. 189.30: hit is my cel nedbearf baet h[ie] man forspille, & mid 
irenum bislum & ordum hie man slea in anr[e] stowe for (sic!) niman mid 
witum (or subjective?). [Possibly an and has dropped out before for f] 
Mlj. Horn. I. 490* x * 2 : Hwaet is lange lybban buton lange swincan (or sub¬ 
jective?)?— 76. I. 584 tl>2 - 3 * 4 : Hwaet is god willa buton godnys, baet he 
obres mannes ungelimp besargige, and on his gesundfulnysse faegnige, his 
freond na for middengearde ac for gode lufige; his feond mid lufe forberan, 
nanum gebeodan baet him sylfum ne licige, his nextan neode be his mihte gehel- 
pan, and ofer his mihte wyllan (the infinitives may be appositive)? 
JElf. L. S. XXIII B. 643: to bam mynstre ferde on baere ylcan tide be 
heora easter-gewuna wceron togaedere becuman [Bosworth-Toller, sub v. gewuna, 
suggests woes for wceron]. — 76. XXV. 310 b : Nis nan earfobnyss baem . . . 
1 In his A First Book in Old English, p. 131. Thorpe’s quotation is from iElfric’s Colloquy, a work not in¬ 
duced in my “ Statistics,” and is found on p. 30 of the edition of the Analecta cited in my bibliography. 
2 = Charms V, C. 4 a ' b > °> d , 5 a - b . — M. C., Jr. 
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