THE FINAL INFINITIVE. 
253 
the infinitive, but upon the fact that the infinitive is being used in poetry, 
which habitually keeps the original idiom, the infinitive without a preposition. 
In Old High German, the uninflected infinitive is far more common than is 
the inflected infinitive after verbs of motion (chiefly queman, gangan, faran) in 
Tatian 1 and still more common in Otfrid; 2 while the inflected infinitive is 
found only a few times in Otfrid (after queman, gangan, slihan, stantan). Un¬ 
fortunately Rannow does not treat the final use of the infinitive in his Der 
Satzbau des Ahd. Isidor; nor does Wunderlich in his Beitrage zur Syntax des 
Nother 7 schen Boethius; nor Manthey, in his Syntaktische Beobachtungen an 
Nothers Uebersetzung des Martianus Capella. We have, therefore, for our pur¬ 
poses a far from adequate survey of the final infinitive in Old High German. 
However, the examples of Tatian’s use, as given by Denecke, are illuminating. 
We learn that, as in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, the final infinitive, both unin¬ 
flected and inflected, often translates (a) a Latin infinitive of purpose, though 
the uninflected occasionally translates (b) a Latin participle or (c) finite verb; 
and the inflected infinitive, often (d) ad + a gerund or gerundive: — (a) Ta¬ 
tian 278.28: Tho sio fuorun coufen = Dum autem irent emere ; 3 Denkm. lvi. 48: 
quemendi ci ardeilenne = venturus judicare ; 4 — (b) Tatian 200.25: quam suochen 
= venit quaerens, 5 — ( c ) Ev. Mat 18.15: daz er in sceffilin gene sizzen = ut in 
naviculam adscendens sederet ; 6 — (d) Tatian 74.10: foraferis zi garwenne . . . 
zi gebanne wistuom = praeibis parare ... ad dandam scientiam. 7 Occasionally, 
it should be added, Tatian turns the Latin final infinitive by a dependent clause, 
as in 120.39: ni quam zi thiu thaz ih sibba santi, ouh suuert = non veni pacem 
miitere sed gladium. 8 
Slight as our statistics are, they seem to make clear that in Old High Ger¬ 
man the uninflected infinitive of purpose after verbs of motion is a native idiom; 
and that the inflected infinitive was at times suggested by the Latin original 
(the constructions with gerund or gerundive), habitually in the closer transla¬ 
tions like the Benedictine Rule. The case, therefore, is not so bad for Old High 
German in general as it seemed to Denecke for the verb queman, concerning 
which, after giving an example of the inflected infinitive following it, he adds, 
p. 63: “ Noch haufiger ist es mit reinem Inf. (s. I, 4), ohne dass sich ein Grund 
fur die jeweilige Wahl des einen oder des andern Ausdrucks finden liesse, wah- 
rend es im Got. (Kohler, S. 454) nur mit reinen Inf. vorkommt, Otfr. mit zi 
(Erd., S. 212) und mit einfachem Inf. (S. 204).” 
Quite common, too, is the final infinitive, both uninflected and inflected, 
after verbs of motion in Old Saxon. Pratje, l. c., pp. 69-70, 73, gives numerous 
examples, of which I cite only a few: Bel. 3492: thia . . . uuirkean quamun; 
ib. 4526: geng im thuo eft gisittian (though Pratje considers the infinitive ‘phrase¬ 
ological’) ; ib. 807: giuuitun im . . . iro suno suokean; ib. 523: nu ist thie helago 
Crist cuman to alosannea thia liude; ib. 4541: that ik iu sanda tharod te giger- 
iuuianne mina goma. 
From the foregoing survey, incomplete as it is, it seems probable that the 
uninflected infinitive of purpose after verbs of motion is an idiom native to the 
Germanic languages as a whole; and that the inflected infinitive in Gothic was 
1 For Tatian see Denecke, l. c., pp. 16-17 and 62-63. 
2 For Otfrid see Erdmann, 1 0., 1. c., pp. 204, 212. 
3 From Denecke, l. c., p. 16. 
3 Ibidem, p. 16. 
7 From Denecke, l. c., p. 63. See, too, pp. 57, 59. 
4 Ibidem,, p. 62. 
6 Ibidem, j). 17. 
8 Ibidem, p. 16. 
