264 THE INFINITIVE IN THE OTHER GERMANIC LANGUAGES. 
It seems probable that the inflected infinitive after nouns was native to 
Old High German, corresponding as it does to various Latin idioms. But it 
is noteworthy that the inflected infinitive with genitival force corresponds often, 
as in Anglo-Saxon, to a Latin gerund in the genitive. As to the uninflected in¬ 
finitive, as stated above, Denecke holds that sometimes, as in Tatian 179.1, 
the lack of inflection is due to a misunderstanding of the Latin et ... et; 
sometimes, as in Tatian 210.35, to the fact that a passive infinitive is being 
translated. On p. 69 he thus comments on the interchange of inflected and un¬ 
inflected infinitive seen in Tatian 232.17 above quoted: “ Wechsel der Construc¬ 
tion wohl nur aus nachlassiger Anlehnung an den lat. Text.” He then cites 
other examples of this interchange of the two infinitives after nouns, and adds: 
“ Ueberhaupt diirfte Nachlassigkeit wohl in alien den Fallen anzunehmen sein, 
wo aus der Construction mit zi , ohne dass ein Wechsel in der lat. Construction 
vorliegt, zum einfachen Inf. libergegangen wird.” It is more probable, I think, 
that the lack of inflection in the first and in the third examples is due to the sep¬ 
aration of the infinitive in the Old High German from its noun, — a principle 
that we found applicable in Anglo-Saxon. Concerning the passive infinitive 
Denecke is doubtless correct, for we found that in Anglo-Saxon the infinitive 
part of the compound passive infinitive is never inflected. 
Rare, too, is the uninflected infinitive in Old Saxon. Pratje, l. c., p. 70, 
cites two examples: Hel. 4289: huan ist thin eft uuan cuman; ib. 5825: ik uuet 
that is iu ist niud sehan an theson stene innan; but, in the second, the infinitive 
may be subjective 1 or a predicate nominative instead of a modifier of the noun, 
niud. On pages 73-74 he cites several examples of the inflected infinitive, of 
which I quote only two: Hel. 2228: that ik giuuald hebbiu sundea te fargibanne 
endi oc seokan man te gihelianne; ib. 2377: uuas im tharf mikil te gihoreanne 
hebancuninges uuarfastun uuord. 
In all probability, then, the inflected infinitive with nouns was an idiom 
native to the Germanic languages in general. But when the to ( zu ) infinitive 
is distinctly genitival in function, it seems to have been due in part to foreign 
influence: to the articular (genitive) or the prepositional infinitive in Greek 
and to the genitive of the gerund or gerundive in Latin. Outside of Gothic and 
Old Norse, the uninflected infinitive is found only sporadically with nouns, 
and is usually appreciably separated from the noun it modifies. 
NOTES. 
1. The Historical Infinitive in the Other Germanic Languages. — Grimm, l. c., IV, p. 99, gives 
no example of the historical infinitive in the Germanic languages, but his editors, Messrs. 
Roethe and Schroeder, give what they conceive to be examples from Swedish and from Anglo- 
Saxon. The alleged examples from Anglo-Saxon have been quoted and commented upon in 
the “Introduction,” p. 6. Dr. Monsterberg-Miinckenau, 1 l. c., p. 134, declares that the 
idiom does not occur in Hartmann von Aue. 
2. The Imperative Infinitive in the Other Germanic Languages. — Grimm, l. c., IV, pp. 92-93, 
gives examples of the imperative infinitive in Gothic and in High German, the former in im¬ 
itation of the Greek: L. 9.3: ni J>an tweihnos paidos haban = ^re dva dvo xirQms ?x eLl ' ; — 
HMS. 3.321 a : damite niht gahen; Dioclet. 3586: mich baz verstan; — Lessing 1.279: nicht 
gehen! Dr. Monsterberg-Miinckenau, 1 1. c., p. 134, says the construction does not occur in 
Hartmann von Aue, but does occur in Berthold von Regensburg; and he refers to H. Roet- 
teken, l. c., § 211. 
1 See p. 232 above. 
