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3. Verbs of mental activity
(to think, to suppose, to consider, to believe, to know, to find, to expect, to
imagine, to understand, to assume, to acknowledge, to feel, to trust, etc.). After these verbs the infinitive may
be used in any form, depending on the time relation between the two actions:
He believed Jennie to be playing in the garden.
I supposed him to have been married to her years ago.
If the action of the infinitive refers to the person denoted by the subject, the corresponding reflexive pronoun
is used.
I know myself to be rather slow.
4. Verbs of declaring
(to declare, to report, to pronounce). With these all forms of the infinitive are
possible.
They reported the plane to have been lost.
5. Causative verbs (to make, to have) take a complex object with a bare infinitive, usually it is a non-perfect
infinitive, as the action is the result of inducement. The verb to gel takes a complex object with a to-infinitive.
With other verbs of inducement
(to order, to command, to ask, to allow, etc.) the objective with the
infinitive construction can have only the passive infinitive.
She would not allow the life of the child to be risked.
Note:
If the infinitive attached to such verbs is active, it does not form a complex with the preceding nominal part;
both the elements should be treated as different parts of the sentence, the first as an indirect recipient object, the
second as a direct object:
He ordered him to come. (Whom did he order come? What did he order him?)
6. Verbs of perception (to see, to watch, to hear, to feel, to observe, to notice). After these verbs a bare non-
perfect active infinitive is used.
We saw planes zoom into the air.
They felt the earth shake under their feet.
After these verbs structures with the link verb to be are not used. Where the need arises, a subordinate clause
is used.
I saw that she was pretty. (---/---> I saw her to be pretty.)
§ 126. As was mentioned in § 125 the objective with the infinitive construction may be used with a few
verbs as their indirect non-recipient object. These verbs are to wait (for), to rely (on), to listen (to), to look (for),
to count (upon). All of them except the verb to listen take the infinitive with the particle to. With the verb to
listen a bare infinitive is used.
Can I really count upon him to undertake the job?
I was relying on him to put things right.
I listened to them talk about me.
The objective with participle I construction