THE FINAL INFINITIVE. 
255 
L c., p. 208: gaf hrofnum blod at drekka. I find no example of the infinitive with¬ 
out at after verbs of giving in Falk and Torp; in Lund, l. c., p. 368; or in Nygaard, 
l. c., p. 228. 
In Old High German, we have after geban both uninflected and inflected 
infinitives of purpose, in Tatian, 1 with whom, however, the uninflected infini¬ 
tive is much the more common. In Isidor, 2 in Otfrid, 3 in the Murbacher Hymns , 2 
and in the Benedictine Rule 2 we have only the inflected infinitive, in the last two 
invariably translating a Latin gerund or gerundive. In Tatian the infinitive 
corresponds usually to a Latin infinitive, but occasionally to a Latin noun or 
to ad + a gerund, especially when the infinitive is inflected. Examples are: 
uninflected: Tatian 321.25: gabun imo gimorrotan uuin trincan = dederunt ei 
vinum murratum bibere; ib. 283.22: uuanne . . . uuir . . . gabunmes thir 
trinkanf = quando . . . dedimus tibi potumf ; 4 — inflected: Tatian 165.37: sin 
fleisc geban zi ezzanne = carnem suam dare ad manducandum; ib. 121.31: zi 
trincanne gibit kelih = potum dederit calicem; ib. 169.4: thiu gigebanu sint in zi 
haltanne = quae tradita sunt illis servare . 5 
Sellan is found only with the inflected infinitive according to Denecke, p. 62: 
Ev. Matth. 11.11: selent inan deotom za bismeronne enti za bifillanne enti arha- 
hanne = tradent eum gentibus ad illudendum et flagellandum et crucifigendum; 
ib. 19.17: wirdit gaselit in cruci za slahanne = tradetur ut crucifigatur . 6 
It seems probable, therefore, that the uninflected infinitives, trinkan and 
ezzan , after geban are largely due to the Latin original; and that the inflected 
infinitive after verbs of giving is often due to a Latin gerundial construction. 
In Old Saxon, geban is followed by both the uninflected infinitive and the 
inflected, but drincan and etan are found uninflected only: Hel. 1965: thoh hie 
. . . manno huilicon uuillandi forgebe uuatares drincan; ib. 4640: gibu ik iu 
hier bethiu samad etan endi drincan; 1 — ib. 4763: that ik minan gebe lioban 
lichamon for liudio barn te uuegianne te uuundron; ib. 5225: so man mi gabi 
Judeo liudiun te uuegeanne. 8 
Despite the evident incompleteness of our data, the facts detailed above 
tend to show that the uninflected infinitives, drink and eat, after give are due 
largely to Greek and Latin influence in the Germanic languages as a whole; 
and that the inflected infinitive after verbs of giving is largely due to the influ¬ 
ence of the Latin gerund and gerundive construction in Old High German as 
in Anglo-Saxon. 
4. With Other Verbs. 
Dr. A. Kohler, 2 1. c. } pp. 458 ff., gives a large number of other verbs that in 
Gothic are followed by a final infinitive, simple or prepositional. With very 
few exceptions, the Gothic simple infinitive corresponds to the same in Greek; 
while the Gothic prepositional infinitive usually corresponds to a Greek prepo¬ 
sitional infinitive or to the articular infinitive in the genitive, though it occasion¬ 
ally corresponds to an articular infinitive without a preposition, as in Philip. 
4.10; or to a preposition plus a noun, as in I Tim. 4.3; or to a dependent clause 
introduced by Iva, as in J. 17.4. 
It seems highly probable, therefore, that the final prepositional infinitive 
in Gothic, after whatever group of verbs, is due largely to the fact that in the 
1 See Denecke, l. c., p. 15. 
4 From Denecke, l. c., pp. 15-16. 
7 From Pratje, l. c., p. 70. 
2 Ibidem, p. 16. 
5 Ibidem, p. 62. 
8 From Steig, l. c., p. 494. 
3 Erdmann, 1 O., 1. c., p. 213. 
6 From Denecke, l. c. p. 62. 
