184 ORIGIN OF CONSTRUCTIONS OF INFINITIVE IN ANGLO-SAXON. 
3. That the construction occurs, though not frequently, in the more original 
prose: the Chronicle, the Laws, and Wulfstan. 
2. With a Passive Finite Verb . 
On the other hand, the active infinitive, whether uninflected or inflected, 
as the subject of a passive verb in Anglo-Saxon is probably due to Latin influ¬ 
ence; or, at any rate, the influence of the Latin is stronger here than with the 
active infinitive as the subject of an active verb, for we find: — 
1. That only one example, that inflected, occurs in the poetry, in Guthlac, 
and that as the subject of aliefan. Guthlac, it is well known, is based on a Latin 
original; moreover, as we shall see below, aliefan with a subject infinitive, in 
the prose translations, is usually due to Latin influence. 
2. That, in the prose translations, the Anglo-Saxon subjective infinitive 
usually occurs in translation of a Latin infinitive that is the subject of a finite 
verb (active, U.: 6, I.: 9; passive, U.: 1, I.: 2), though occasionally in transla¬ 
tion of other idioms (an accusative and infinitive as the object of an active verb, 
U.: 0, I.: 2; a gerund in the genitive, U.: 0, I.: 1; ut + a passive subjunctive 
as the object of an active verb, U.: 0, I.: 1), and very rarely without any Latin 
correspondent (U.: 0, I.: 2). It is noteworthy that the active infinitive 
occurs most frequently as the subject of the passive of aliefan, and that, in the 
prose translations, the Anglo-Saxon aliefan with a subject infinitive corresponds 
to the Latin licere with a subject infinitive. 
3. That in only one of the more original prose monuments, Wulfstan, is 
the idiom found, then only a few times and only as the subject of the one verb, 
aliefan, which idiom, as we have above seen, is an imitation of the Latin in the 
Early West Saxon translations. 
It should be added that, as subject to both active and passive verbs, the 
active infinitive is more frequently inflected than not, both in prose and in 
poetry, — a fact discussed in Chapter I; and that both infinitives are found 
as subjects from the outset, the differentiation resting upon the principles 
discussed in the conclusion of Chapter I. 
B. THE PASSIVE INFINITIVE. 
In all probability, the Anglo-Saxon passive infinitive as the subject of active 
verbs (of which only a few examples occur, all quoted above, Chapter I, pp. 26- 
27) is due to Latin influence. No example has been found in the poems. In 
the prose translations the idiom is found very rarely, and always in transla¬ 
tions of a Latin passive infinitive, though the infinitive in Latin is occasionally 
used objectively, as in Wserferth, and occasionally predicatively with a subject 
accusative, as in Bede and in Luke 17.25. The idiom is not found in the more 
original prose, and is very rare even in JElfric. 
The situation is much the same in the other Germanic languages with 
reference both to the active and to the passive infinitive: see Chapter XVI, 
section i. 
