204 ORIGIN OF CONSTRUCTIONS OF INFINITIVE IN ANGLO-SAXON. 
If, for the moment, we assume that the Anglo-Saxon developed the predi¬ 
cative infinitive with accusative subject for itself instead of merely inheriting 
it or borrowing it, it is easy to see a development parallel to that indicated by 
Professor Brugmann in the older Indo-Germanic languages going on in Anglo- 
Saxon itself, or, rather, to see what appear to be traces of such a development. 
For instance, despite the frequency of the infinitive with accusative subject in 
Anglo-Saxon after verbs of commanding ( hatan , etc.) and of causing and permit¬ 
ting ( Icetan , etc.), the infinitive without a subject accusative was far more fre¬ 
quent after hatan than the infinitive with a subject accusative, and was quite 
frequent with Icetan. Moreover, when the infinitives following these two 
groups of verbs have an accusative with them in the Germanic languages, the 
relation between accusative and infinitive, to many Germanic grammarians 
(among them the great Grimm *), seems so loose that they hold that the accu¬ 
sative is to be considered, not as the subject of the infinitive, but solely as the 
object of the finite verb, —- a view that, though in my opinion not tenable, is 
enlightening in calling attention as it does to the looser 2 union between infinitive 
and accusative after these two groups of verbs than after other groups, as after 
verbs of mental perception. Moreover, in Anglo-Saxon the infinitive without 
subject accusative is more common after hieran, ‘ hear/ than with subject. In 
a word, it seems to me that a careful study of the two constructions after these 
three groups of verbs in Anglo-Saxon lends considerable strength to the Brug¬ 
mann theory as to the origin of the infinitive with accusative subject; and that 
we may consider that this theory likewise applies to Anglo-Saxon as a whole 
unless it can be shown that this idiom is merely an importation, say, from the 
Latin. 
Is the infinitive with accusative subject in Anglo-Saxon borrowed from the 
Latin, either in part or in whole? In attempting to answer this question, first 
purely from a consideration of the idiom in Anglo-Saxon, it will be best to 
consider group by group the verbs followed by an infinitive with accusative 
subject. 
1. Verbs of Commanding. 3 
To begin with the most frequently used group, verbs of commanding ( be - 
heodan, biddan, forbeodan, and hatan), it seems to me that, with the exception 
of forbeodan (of which we have only one example 4 followed by the infinitive 
with accusative subject, that in direct translation of the Latin), we are pre¬ 
cluded from assuming that the predicative infinitive is due to the influence of 
the Latin originals, and for the following reasons: — 
1. With each of the three remaining verbs the infinitive wfith accusative 
subject is found freely in the poetical as well as in the prose texts, with two of 
the verbs ( bebeodan and biddan) more freely in the poetry than in the prose, 
though not in Beowulf. 
2. That, while a goodly number of the examples in the Anglo-Saxon prose 
translations are in direct translation of the accusative and infinitive in the 
Latin originals, a not inconsiderable number are not, but correspond to various 
other constructions in the Latin. 
1 L. c., IV, pp. 129 ff. Among those that have adopted this view of Grimm’s I may mention T. Muller and 
Dr. Riggert. 
2 Cf. Zeitlin, 1 l. c., pp. 36-37. 3 Cf. Chapter VIII, p. 107. 
4 Cited in Chapter VIII, p. 109. 
