202 ORIGIN OF CONSTRUCTIONS OF INFINITIVE IN ANGLO-SAXON. 
by Dr. Shearing l. c., p. 26, and by Dr. Kenyon, l. c., p. 133. No opinion as 
to the origin of the idiom is expressed by Dr. Farrar, Dr. K. Kohler, Dr. Jost, 
or Dr. Riggert. 
In the kindred Germanic languages the origin was probably the same as in 
Anglo-Saxon: see Chapter XVI, section vii. 
The inflected infinitive with beon (wesan) denoting necessity or obligation 
and active in sense is, likewise, in all probability due to the Latin periphrastic 
passive conjugation, and for substantially the same reasons as those given in 
the discussion of the Anglo-Saxon inflected infinitive passive in sense. No 
example of this infinitive used in an active sense occurs in the poems; with one 
exception ( Boeth . 44.20: Forbsem hit nis no to metanne baet geendodlice wiS beet 
ungeendodlice = 46.57: infiniti uero atque finiti nulla umquam poterit esse 
collatio) the infinitive in Alfred 1 corresponds each time to the Latin passive 
periphrastic (complete or elliptical), while the single example in Wserferth 
(340.29: warniari) corresponds to ad + a gerundive. If it should seem odd that 
the Latin passive periphrastic should suggest the active as well as the passive 
use of the inflected infinitive in Anglo-Saxon, the explanation seems to be this: 
in one instance (Bede 224.19, quoted in Chapter VII, p. 103) the active use 
eomes from a too close following of the Latin accusative and periphrastic in¬ 
finitive ( Deurn potius intellegendum) ; in some instances (as in Greg. 125.13, 
187.15; Pr. Gu. III. 63), the fact that the Latin gerundive precedes the verb 
sum in the periphrastic conjugation has led the Anglo-Saxon translator to 
put the inflected infinitive first in his translation, to consider it active in sense, 
and consequently to put what is the subject nominative in Latin into the 
objective case (accusative, genitive, or dative) in Anglo-Saxon; in a word, in 
these latter cases the precedence of the infinitive (or occasionally of the finite 
verb, as in Lcece. 68.30) seems to lead to the objectifying of the noun. This 
same principle of precedence may in part account for the active use in the ex¬ 
amples from yElfric, from the prose Guthlac , and from the Lceceboc. But 
occasionally (as in Mart. 72.25 and Lcece. 76.33 — with which latter, however, 
compare Lcece. 63.37, in which the infinitive has precedence —) the infinitive 
is active in sense though it follows its object. — That ad + a gerundive should 
be translated actively (as in Wcerf. 340.29) is what we should expect; but this 
is the only instance in which it is so translated: normally it is rendered by an 
inflected infinitive passive in sense. — The fact that the same form, -ndus, in 
Latin could be used actively or passively in all probability contributed to the 
double use of the infinitive in Anglo-Saxon; as may, also, the fact that in other 
uses than with beon (wesan) the inflected infinitive is habitually active in sense in 
Anglo-Saxon. 
B. THE INFINITIVE DENOTES FUTURITY. 
The inflected infinitive with beon (wesan) denoting futurity corresponds 
regularly to the Latin periphrastic conjugation made up of sum+ the future 
active participle in all the examples from the Anglo-Saxon translations from 
the Latin given in Chapter VII, pp. 104 ff. above. The construction occurs 
but once in Alfred (Bede 224.26), and translates the Latin active periphrastic; 
is unknown in the poems, in the Chronicle , in the Laws, and in Wulfstan; is 
relatively frequent in the Gospels, where every occurrence corresponds to the 
1 The same is true of Pr. Gu. Ill, 63, but not of Pr. Gu. V, 58; for both of which, see Chapter VII, pp. 104 
and 102 above. 
