248 THE INFINITIVE IN THE OTHER GERMANIC LANGUAGES. 
of gibot, but in reality the inflected infinitive (like the uninflected in this sen¬ 
tence) is the object of gibot, not the predicate of the accusative noun or pronoun, 
the accusative being objective in the Old High German, though subjective 
in the Latin; for, as we saw above, p. 247, in Old High German, as in Anglo- 
Saxon, the predicative passive infinitive is normally turned by an active objec¬ 
tive infinitive. In Aug. serm. 33.8: manot unsih za forstantanne - admonet nos 
intelligere, 1 we may have an inflected infinitive used predicatively, but more prob¬ 
ably we have an inflected infinitive denoting result. But at least two clear ex¬ 
amples of the inflected infinitive with an accusative subject occur in Old High 
German, in a subjective phrase: Tatian 331.2: inan gilimphit zi arstantanne 
= oportet eum resurgere; 2 and ib. 206.26: odira ist olbentun zi faranne, thanne 
otagan zi ganganne = facilius est camelum transire, quam divitem intrare . 3 The 
inflection of the predicative infinitive here, as indeed in the instances of the sub¬ 
jective infinitive, is due to the datival sense of gilimphit and of ist plus an adjec¬ 
tive, I believe; while in the instances with the uninflected infinitive, especially 
when predicative, this datival sense is resisted owing to the influence of the 
Latin original. In Tatian 342.13: leret sie zi bihaltanne alliu = docentes eos 
servare omnia, 4 we possibly have a predicative infinitive, but the infinitive is 
inflected because the chief verb, leret, hovers between a transitive and a con¬ 
secutive-final sense: cf. the inflected predicative infinitive with Anglo-Saxon 
Iceran in Chapter VIII, p. 119. 
In Old Saxon I have found no example of the inflected infinitive with 
accusative subject unless the following be such: Hel. 2752: huo thu gilinot 
habis liudeo menigi te blizzenna; 5 ib. 976: that us so girisit . . . allaro rehto 
gihuilik ti gifullanne; but more probably the infinitive here is subjective: see 
above, p. 232. 
As is evident, most of the examples cited of a supposed predicative use of 
the prepositional infinitive in the Germanic languages, are doubtful. In a few 
instances, however, it seems to me that the inflected infinitive is really predica¬ 
tive, and has an accusative subject. In such cases the infinitive becomes in¬ 
flected because of its proximity to a dative-governing finite verb, or because it 
follows a verb denoting tendency, or, occasionally, in Gothic because the Greek 
original has a prepositional infinitive. 
IX. PREDICATIVE INFINITIVE WITH DATIVE SUBJECT. 
As stated above, Chapter IX, p. 136, I doubt whether we have a genuine 
predicative infinitive with dative subject in Anglo-Saxon, but, as this inter¬ 
pretation of the dative and infinitive after impersonal verbs in Gothic is given 
by such eminent scholars as Grimm, Miklosich, Jolly, Winkler, and Streitberg, 
it is incumbent upon me to give a brief survey of the construction in the Ger¬ 
manic languages other than Anglo-Saxon. 
For the Gothic I cannot do better than to quote entire Professor Streit- 
berg’s paragraph on this idiom, in his Gotisches Elementarbuch, 4th ed., § 318: 
“Der von Jakob Grimm entdeckte, von Miklosich und Jolly verteidigte Dativ 
1 From Denecke, l. c., p. 66. 2 Ibidem, p. 67. 
3 From Denecke, l. c., p. 71, who adds: “ Der Acc. ist sicher nur dem Lat. aus Nachlassigkeit nachgeahmt.” 
4 From Denecke, l . c., p. 65. 6 From Pratje, l. c., p. 73. 
