PREDICATIVE INFINITIVE WITH VERBS OF MOTION AND REST. 197 
He then quotes Bede 619.23 and Boethius 6.9, and refers to Matzner, to Schrader, 
and to an article by himself in Englische Studien, Vol. XIX, 1894, pp. 118-119. 
In this last article, in reviewing A. Muller’s Der Syntaktische Gebrauch des 
Verbums in dem Angelsachsischen Gedichte von der Judith (a Leipzig disserta¬ 
tion of 1892), Dr. Wiilfing discusses the origin of the infinitive with gehen in 
such expressions as essen gehen, sitzen gehen, stehen gehen, schlafen gehen, liegen 
gehen, particularly in modern Niederdeutsch (liggen gan = ‘ sich legen; ’ lopen 
gan — 1 weglaufen; * stan gan = ‘sich stellen’), and concludes: “ Sicher ist 
die Beziehung des Zweckes in diesen Infinitiven bei gan das urspriingliche, 
spater aber verwischte sich die Bezeichnung des Zweckes mit der der Gleich- 
zeitigkeit, und das Ganze wurde zu einer pleonastischen Umschreibung; ob dies 
aber schon in ags. Zeit der Fall war, lasst sich bezweifeln.” 
In his The Expression of Purpose in Old English Prose (1903), p. 13, Pro¬ 
fessor Shearin thus comments on the idiom: “ There is met four times, in the 
prose of the early period, the infinitive of a verb of motion after another verb 
of like kind, used pleonastically to express manner of motion.” 
Professor Strunk, in his Juliana (1904), thus comments on cwom blican, 
11. 563-564: “ A common idiom in O. E. poetry: a verb of motion followed by 
a complementary infinitive,” a definition which seems to hark back to the 
statement of Grimm given below. 
The most recent expressions of opinion as to the nature of the idiom that I 
have seen are by Dr. Kenyon, in his The Syntax of the Infinitive in Chaucer 
(1909), and by Dr. Riggert, in his Der Syntaktische Gebrauch des Infinitivs in 
der Altenglischen Poesie (1909). Says the former, l. c., p. 6: “As in O. E., 
so sometimes in Chaucer, the simple infinitive with verbs of motion represents 
a simultaneous action, denoting the manner or specifying the nature of the 
governing verb. Cf. Beow. 711: fta com of more under misthleobum Grendel 
gongan (K[ohler], p. 31).” Dr. Riggert, Z. c., pp. 38 ff., lists the examples of 
our idiom under this heading: “ Der Infinitiv bezeichnet die Art und Weise 
der Bewegungoder eine gleichzeitige Handlung.” He adds: “ Der Infinitiv, der 
die Art und Weise der Bewegung ausdruckt, enthalt ein Verbum, das mit 
dem Verbum Finitum sinn-verw*andt ist; in Ausdriicken wie gewat him cSa 
Andreas gangan steht der Infinitiv rein pleonastiseh.” 
But, while helpful, none of these more modern statements are so helpful as 
this brief statement by Grimm: “ Ferner stehn die Verba gehen, fahren, kommen 
auxiliarisch mit dem blossen Inf.” 1 Grimm then cites numerous examples of 
the uninflected infinitive after these and similar verbs of motion in the various 
Germanic languages, among the rest (p. 108) in Anglo-Saxon. In the last, 
as in the other Germanic languages illustrated by Grimm, sometimes the in¬ 
finitive is clearly final (as in Beow. 1601 (Grimm’s reading): gewat him secan) 
and sometimes predicative (as in Gen. 1471: gewat fleogan). 
Personally I believe that the predicative infinitive after verbs of motion 
was originally final in sense in Anglo-Saxon, a use of the uninflected infinitive 
very common in the poems and not unknown in the prose. Later the principal 
verb of motion paled down to a mere auxiliary (w'hence Grimm speaks of the 
use of the finite verb of motion as auxiliary, as already stated), and the infini¬ 
tive after this verb of motion came to complete the sense of this verb of incom¬ 
plete sense when used as an auxiliary: thus, to take again the example cited by 
1 Grimm, l. c., IV, p. 107. 
