CHAPTER XV. 
SOME SUBSTITUTES FOR THE INFINITIVE IN 
ANGLO-SAXON. 
I. THE PREDICATE NOMINATIVE OF THE PRESENT PARTI¬ 
CIPLE FOR THE PREDICATIVE INFINITIVE AFTER VERBS OF 
MOTION. 
Though not correct in saying that in Late West Saxon the present parti¬ 
ciple had completely supplanted the present infinitive after verbs of motion, 
Dr. Schrader 1 was undoubtedly pointing out, though by no means for the first 
time, a tendency of Anglo-Saxon that made large headway in Late West Saxon, 
and became the law in succeeding epochs. What led to this partial supplant¬ 
ing of the predicative infinitive of motion after verbs of motion by the present 2 
participle in Anglo-Saxon? What led, for example, He com fleogan, He com 
gangan , He com iernan, and He com ridan to become He com fleogende, He com 
gangende , He com iernende, and He com ridende t If any adequate explanation 
of the fact has been offered either for Anglo-Saxon or for the Germanic languages 
as a whole, it has escaped me. Personally I think the chief causes of the sub¬ 
stitution to be these: — 
First, the relative rareness of the predicative infinitive of motion 3 even in 
Anglo-Saxon poetry and its still greater infrequency in Anglo-Saxon prose, 
would tend to bring about the disuse of the idiom, especially in prose. 
Secondly, I doubt not that the well established, perhaps native, Anglo- 
Saxon use of an appositive participle to denote manner 4 with other verbs 
than those signifying motion (as in Boeth. 8.15: Da ic ba bis leob, cwseb B., 
geomriende asungen haefde, ba com etc.; Gen. 1582: ac he hlihende brobrum 
ssegde) and its occasional use to denote what looks like manner with verbs of 
motion (as in Mlf. Horn. I. 566*: com seo sae fserlice swegende; Az. 144: heofon- 
fuglas, ba be lacende geond lyft farad; Met. 20.216: hwilum eft smeab ymb bone 
ecan god sceppend hire, scriSende fcer& hweole gelicost, hwserfb ymb hi selfe) 
tended to the gradual extension of the use of the participle. 
Potent, too, was the influence of the periphrastic tenses made up of the 
verb to be plus a present participle, an idiom common in all stages of Anglo- 
Saxon, as shown by Dr. Constance Pessels, in his The Present and Past Peri¬ 
phrastic Tenses in Anglo-Saxon. Slight, if not inappreciable at first, this 
influence would become the stronger as the principal verb of motion paled 
more and more into a .mere auxiliary. 
Noteworthy, also, was the influence of the appositive participle of 
words not denoting motion used in connection with verbs of motion, as in 
L. 3.3: he com into eall Iordanes rice, bodiende dsedbote fulluht on synna for- 
gyfenesse = venit in omnem regionem Jordanis, prcedicans baptismum poeni- 
tentise in remissionem peccatorum. 
1 L. c., p. 70: see Chapter V, p. 89 above. 
2 Though Professor Einenkel, 1 l. c., p. 238, considers that the past participle is similarly used in Salomon 
and Saturn, 1. 178 (hwse'Sre waes on saelum, se Se of siSe cwom feorran gefered ), and that cwom . . . gefered = the 
German kam gegangen, I must hold with Professor March, l. c., p. 201, that the Anglo-Saxon phrase i3 not the 
equivalent of the German: gefered is used appositively, not predicatively, I think. 
3 See Chapter V, p. 89. 4 See the writer’s The Appositive Participle in Anglo-Saxon, pp. 274-278. 
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