220 ORIGIN OF CONSTRUCTIONS OF INFINITIVE IN ANGLO-SAXON. 
To sum up these adverbial uses: the causal is partly due to Latin influence, 
and is partly of native origin; the specificatory use with verbs is certainly due 
to the Latin original; the consecutive use, with adjectives is of native origin, 
and with verbs is largely native but partly foreign; and the absolute use is 
wholly native. 
XIII. THE INFINITIVE WITH NOUNS. 1 
The inflected infinitive with nouns is probably, in the main, of native origin 
in Anglo-Saxon, because: — 
1. Though rare in the poems, eight clear examples occur, one of which is in 
Beowulf (316; Beow. 1941 is doubtful). 
2. It is frequent in Alfred; and while, in the majority of instances (in about 48 
examples out of a total of 81), it corresponds to a gerund or gerundive, which may 
partly have suggested the inflected infinitive in the Anglo-Saxon translation, 
in twelve of the examples there is no Latin, and in the remaining cases the 
Latin correspondents are too varied for the Latin to have had a determining 
influence in the choice of the Anglo-Saxon method of translation. 
The Latin correspondents to this idiom in the Anglo-Saxon translations as a whole are: 
a noun (or a pronoun) with a gerund in the genitive (63); or with a gerundive in the genitive 
(9) or in the dative (1); or with ad -fa gerund in the accusative (6) or with ad + a gerundive 
in the accusative (3); or with an infinitive modifying it (14); or with a noun in the geni¬ 
tive (5); an adjective with a supine in -u (1) or with a prepositional phrase (1); an infinitive (ob¬ 
jective, 1; predicative with an auxiliary (4) or with an accusative subject (1)); a subjunc¬ 
tive (active, 5; passive, 2); an indicative, active (3); an attributive participle, active (1); 
a loose paraphrase (13); no Latin (15). 
3. Though rare in the Chronicle and in the Laws, six clear examples occur 
in the former, and four in the latter. 
I believe, therefore, that the idiom in Anglo-Saxon is probably in the main 
of native origin, and that the infinitive phrase modifying the noun is analogous 
to other prepositional adjectival phrases modifying a noun. I think, however, 
that it is highly probable that the frequency of the idiom in the Anglo-Saxon 
translations (especially in Alfred and in the Gospels) is partly due to the fre¬ 
quency of the constructions with gerund or gerundive in the Latin originals. 
Moreover, it seems likely that the use of the inflected infinitive as a genitive 
modifier of the noun is in no small measure due to the influence of the Latin 
genitive of gerund or of gerundive of the original, since (1) the clear cases of 
the genitive function of the inflected infinitive are restricted largely to those 
passages translating such Latin constructions; and since (2) we have next 
to no prepositional adjectival phrases of genitive function in Early West Saxon 
aside from those in which the inflected infinitive occurs. 
As stated in Chapter XIII, p. 181, in the four instances of a noun modi¬ 
fied by an uninflected infinitive, the lack of inflection is probably due to the 
remoteness of the infinitive from the noun in all cases except one {And. 1538), 
and in this instance it may be due to the peculiar significance of the noun 
modified {myne) or to the exigencies of the meter. 
In the other Germanic languages the situation is much the same: see 
Chapter XVI, section xiii. 
1 See Chapter XIII, p. 173. 
