OTHER SUBSTANTIVAL USES OF THE INFINITIVE. 
193 
m. OTHER SUBSTANTIVAL USES OF THE INFINITIVE . 1 
A. AS A PREDICATE NOMINATIVE. 
As to the origin of the infinitive as a predicate nominative, it is difficult to 
speak with any confidence. Only two examples occur in the poetry ( Beow. 
473: Sorh is me to secganne, and ib. 1724: Wundor is to secganne), both of 
which are doubtful, and only one in Early West Saxon (Bede 202.29: Dset eac 
swilce his Seaw wses on o?>rum cyninges tune to donne = 160.1: quod ipsum et 
in aliis uillis regiis facere solebat), which is also doubtful. One example each 
occurs in the Gosp. (J . 19.40) and in the A. S. Horn. & L. S. II. (10.521); 
three, in Wulf. (214.22, 279.5 a * b ); and the remainder, constituting the major¬ 
ity, in iElfric. It is possible that the infinitive as a predicate nominative is an 
extension of the inflected infinitive as subject of a verb + a noun or pronoun, 
or as the modifier of a noun, but the fact that the predicate infinitive does not 
occur, save sporadically, until Late West Saxon times, and that, in the example 
from the Gospels, the Anglo-Saxon infinitive corresponds to a Latin infinitive as 
predicate nominative, makes it probable that Latin influence contributed some¬ 
what to the result. What is here written applies primarily to the inflected 
infinitive, which, as we have seen above, Chapter III, p. 74, is the normal 
form in this idiom. For the explanation of the few uninflected infinitives in 
this construction, see above, Chapter III, p. 75. 
In the other Germanic languages the infinitive as predicate nominative is 
rare: see Chapter XVI, section iii. 
B. AS AN APPOSITIVE. 
The appositive infinitive, normally uninflected, is rare in Early West Saxon 
and in Late West Saxon, and only three examples, all uninflected, occur in 
the poetry (Beow. 76, Maldon 208 a * b ). In the translations it corresponds to an 
appositive infinitive (Gosp.: Mk. 2.9 a * b ; L. 5.23 a> b ; Mat. 9.5 a> b ); to a subjective 
infinitive (Bede 78.22 a * b> c> d * e ; Greg. 355.22 a> b ; Oros. 50.16; Solil. 16.16, 17; 
Mk. 12.33 (?) ); to a subjunctive (Greg. 273.3 (?) ); to an objective infinitive 
(Boeth. 53.20 a> b ; Pr. Gu. IV. 58, XVI. 14 a>b ); to an attributive adjective 
(Bede 458.24); to a prepositional phrase (Bede 56.24); and occasionally has 
no Latin correspondent (Boeth. 84.32; Pr. Ps. 39. Intr.; Solil. 2.16, 17; Oros. 
44.9, 10 a * b ; 120.31 a ’ b ; 138.32 a - b ; 178.10,11). The construction is found 
occasionally, too, in the Chronicle and in the Laws. The idiom may be native, 
but it is probable that in a number of instances the construction is due to 
Latin influence: probably but not necessarily, in those in which the appositive 
infinitive occurs both in the Latin original and in the Anglo-Saxon translation, 
but also in a number of other instances in which there is no such correspond¬ 
ence in the specific sentences, but in which the Latin pattern (of other sentences) 
is followed. The occasional inflection of the appositive infinitive is due to its 
proximity to some word requiring a case other than the accusative, as explained 
in Chapter III. 
In the other Germanic languages this use, also, is rare: see Chapter XVI, 
section iii. 
1 See Chapter III, p. 73. 
