78 
OTHER SUBSTANTIVAL USES OF THE INFINITIVE. 
C. AS THE OBJECT OF A PREPOSITION. 
Aside from the inflected infinitive made up of the preposition to 1 plus a 
dative of the verbal noun in -ne, which we regard as a unit and which, therefore, 
does not strictly fall under the above heading, I have found no clear case of an 
infinitive used as the object of a preposition. Dr. T. J. Farrar, l. c., p. 35, cites 
Bede 82.22 (bes mon is his seolfes dome to forlsetenne, obbe be cirican ingonge, 
obbe to onfonne bsem geryne = 58.25: iste profecto siue de ingressu ecclesiae, 
seu de sumendo dominici corporis sanguinisque mysterio, suo est iudicio relin- 
quendus) as an example of the inflected infinitive used with the preposition 
be; and it is possible so to construe to onfonne , especially in view of its close 
correspondence to the Latin de sumendo. It is also possible, however, to con¬ 
sider to onfonne as an adverbial infinitive of specification without dependence 
upon the preposition be: see Chapter XII, section B. In sentences like Wulf. 
279.5 a * b (ne gebyreb set cyrican senig Sing to donne, butan god to herianne and 
hine to gebiddanne), butan is probably a conjunctive adverb instead of a prepo¬ 
sition, and the infinitives, instead of being objects of butan y are nominatives. 
— In Wcerf. 71.11 (he wses geornful mid teolone his singalra gebeda = 200 B: 
continuse orationis studio) one is tempted to consider teolone an inflected infini¬ 
tive that has lost its to and that is the object of the preposition mid. But more 
probably teolone is a noun, though I do not find it so recorded in the dictionaries. 
To turn to the uninflected infinitive, it is probable that in such instances as 
JElf. Horn. I. 490* 2 (Hwset is lange lybban buton lange swincan) and JElf. L. S. 
XXV. 198, 199 (hwset wille we leng don buton licgan ealle set his arwurbum 
cneowum and eadmodlice biddan bset he us gebingie to byllicum gode?) buton 
is a conjunctive adverb, not a preposition. — So, too, in Bede 78.26 (Ond hwset 
elles is to secenne wib bsem hungre nemne ondlifen, wib burst drync, wib hseto 
celnis, wib cyle hrsegl, wib werignesse reste, wib untrymnesse lacedom secan 
= 56.3: Et quid est aliud contra famem alimenta, contra sitim potum, contra 
aestum auras, contra frigus uestem, contra lassitudinem requiem quaerere, 
nisi medicamentum quidem contra egritudines explorare) nemne is probably a 
conjunction, as is the Latin nisi; and secan in reality completes the sense of 
is, as does to secanne, but, owing to its remoteness from is, is uninflected: see 
Chapter VII, p. 98. — In Lcece. 5.37 (gif mon on sinwe beslea oet blodlcetan 
and 45.10 (Gif mon cet blodlcetan on sinwe beslea), we have a compound noun, 
I think, although I do not find this word so recorded in the dictionaries. 
For the idiom in the other Germanic languages, see Chapter XVI, section iii. 
1 Also sporadically of for to. 
