CHAPTER V. 
THE PREDICATIVE INFINITIVE WITH VERBS OF MOTION 
AND OF REST. 
By the phrase, “ the Predicative Infinitive with Verbs of Motion,” I refer 
to the infinitive in such sentences as the following: Mart. 26.10: culfre com 
fleogan of heofonum ond gesset ofer his heafde; Gen. 1479: culufran . . ., seo 
eft ne com to lide fleogan; in which the infinitive, instead of denoting purpose, 
seems equivalent, in modern English, to a predicate present participle: ‘ The 
dove came flying from heaven/ etc. Various other names have been proposed 
for this use of the infinitive: “ modal,” by Koch , 1 in his Englische Grammatik, 
1865; “ definitive,” by Professor March , 2 in his A Comparative Grammar of the 
Anglo-Saxon Language, 1869; “ pleonastic,” by Dr. Steig , 3 in his “ Ueber den 
Gebrauch des Infinitivs im Altniederdeutschen,” 1884; and “phraseological,” by 
Dr. Pratje , 4 in his “ Syntax des Heliand,” 1885. To this list might be added 
still another name, “ co-ordinate,” since several writers (as Koch, Matzner, 
K. Kohler, Wiilfing, and Riggert) declare that at times the predicative infini¬ 
tive expresses an action co-ordinate with that expressed by the finite verb. 
The grounds for these various names and for my own choice are given in my 
chapter on “ The Origin of the Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon,” section v. It 
should be added that under “ the Predicative Infinitive after Verbs of Motion ” 
I do not include the infinitive of verbs of motion after the adhortative ( w)uton , 
a separate chapter being devoted to the latter idiom. 
In the predicative use with verbs of motion, the infinitive is invariably 
uninflected. The construction is far more common in Anglo-Saxon poetry 
than in prose; but the idiom is far more frequent in prose than has been thought 
hitherto. Instead of only four examples in the prose, as claimed by Professor 
Shearin, 5 there are seventeen examples, or twenty, if we include three examples 
of the predicative infinitive after verbs of rest ( stondan , 1 stand/ and licgan , 
‘ lie *). The examples not cited by Dr. Shearin are: Wcerf. 84.20, 25; — Pr. 
Gu. I. 26, V. 7, X. 5; — Mart. 26.10, 90.14, 182.4, 200.12; — Mlf. L. S. XXXI. 
1039; — A. S. Horn. & L. S. II. 15.178, 292; — Apol. 29.10; — to which we 
may add Pr. Gu. V. 274 a> b , in which the infinitive follows stondan; and AS If. 
L. S. 512.417, in which the infinitive follows licgan. Moreover, the scope and 
the life of this idiom in the prose have been underrated by both Dr. Schrader 6 
and Dr. Shearin : 7 instead of being found only in Alfred, in the non-JElfrician 
Homilies, and in Wserferth, it occurs also, as the above list shows, in the prose 
1 L. c., II, p. 61. This term is the one most frequently used by writers upon Anglo-Saxon syntax. 
s L. c., § 448.4: “ General motion defined by specific motion: fleon gewat ,” etc. 
8 L. c., p. 337. 4 L. c., § 142. 
5 Shearin, 1 l. c., p. 13. It is only fair to add, however, that the idiom under discussion by me was only in¬ 
directly connected with the main theme of Dr. Shearin’s monograph, The Expression of Purpose in Old English 
Prose, and that he devoted thereto only a brief note. 
® Schrader, l. c., p. 70, declares that this use of the infinitive is not found in jElfric, but, when he wrote, in 
1887, the third volume of Skeat’s edition of ^Elfric’s Lives of Saints, in which the example occurs, had not been 
published. 
7 Shearin, 1 l. c., p. 13. 
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