214 ORIGIN OF CONSTRUCTIONS OF INFINITIVE IN ANGLO-SAXON. 
idioms. It is evident, therefore, not only that the idiom was not native to 
Anglo-Saxon, but also that it was never naturalized therein. 
The situation is substantially the same in the other Germanic languages: 
see Chapter XVI, section viii. 
AS SUBJECT. 
Whether containing an active or a passive infinitive as predicate to an accusa¬ 
tive, the infinitive phrase as subject is manifestly of Latin origin, 1 occurring 
only 2 in the Anglo-Saxon translations and each time corresponding to the 
same idiom in the Latin originals (except in one instance, Bede 70.32, where it 
corresponds to a complementary passive infinitive after a passive verb), as will 
appear from an examination of the examples, already quoted on pp. 124 f. 
above. 
In the other Germanic languages, the accusative with infinitive, as subject, 
is rare in subject clauses, and is an importation: see Chapter XVI, section viii. 
IX. PREDICATIVE INFINITIVE WITH DATIVE SUBJECT . 3 
In Chapter IX, I have tried to give grounds for the belief there stated that 
in Anglo-Saxon we have no genuine predicative infinitive, whether uninflected 
or inflected, with dative subject; that the infinitives sometimes cited as predi¬ 
cative are either subjective or objective; and that the dative noun or pronoun 
depends on the finite verb instead of being subject to the infinitive. The 
origin of these so-called predicative infinitives with dative subject has been 
discussed in sections i and ii of the present chapter. 
In Chapter IX, however, were given several sporadic examples of an ap¬ 
parent, if not a real, predicative use of an uninflected infinitive with a subject 
dative in form after don and Icetan, but these occur almost exclusively in the 
later Chronicle , by which time the dative and accusative forms of the personal 
pronoun of the third person may have become interchangeable. The solitary 
example cited of an inflected infinitive used predicatively with a dative subject 
(after hieran) occurs in a doubtful passage, but the inflection of the infinitive is 
probably due to the presence of a gerundive in the Latin original. In a word, 
the following statement of Professor Einenkel 4 as to the interrelation of the 
infinitive-with-dative to the predicative infinitive-with-accusative construction 
is correct, but, as implied by him, the assumption of predicative force by the 
former did not occur until Middle English times: “ Die gesamte altenglische 
so beliebte Konstruktion, Subjekts-Inf. + Dat. com. ist in diese Acc. mit Inf.- 
Bewegung hineingezogen worden [ae. Micele swi&or gedafenaS Sam mcedenum 
to Sencanne, Ags. Pr.].” 
For the so-called predicative infinitive with dative subject in the other 
Germanic languages, see Chapter XVI, section ix. 
1 De Reul, l. c., p. 135, says of this idiom in Middle English: “ The construction is a Latinism which was 
introduced either directly or through the French.” 
2 Except that once we have an inflected infinitive with accusative subject as subject of a passive verb in 
the late Chronicle: see p. 124 above. 
3 See Chapter IX, p. 127. 
4 Einenkel, 3 1. c., p. 1076. See, too, De Reul, l. c., pp. 136 ff. 
