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72
At that time I happened to be bringing him some of the books borrowed from him two days before,
(continuous)
2) Syntactical: the infinitive possesses the verb combinability:
a) it takes an object in the same way as the corresponding finite verbs do;
b)it takes a predicative if it happens to be a link verb;
c) it is modified by adverbials in the same way as finite verbs:
Infinitive
Finite verb
a)
To tell him about it the same night was out of the
question.
She did not mean to depend on her father.
b)
She wanted to be a teacher.
I don’t want to look pale tonight.
c) To draw his attention I had to speak very loudly.
She told me about it only yesterday.
You see, I depend on his word only.
He was a teacher of French.
She looked pale and haggard.
He spoke loudly, turning his head from side to side.
The nominal features of the infinitive are revealed only in its function:
To understand is to forgive. (subject, predicative)
That’s what I wanted to know. (object)
I saw the chance to escape into the garden. (attribute)
I merely came back to water the roses, (adverbial modifier of purpose)
The Grammatical Categories of the Infinitive
§ 97. As has already been stated the infinitive has three grammatical categories, those of perfect, voice, and
aspect.
The system of grammatical categories of the infinitive is shown in the table below.
Table IV
Voice
Perfect
Aspect
Active
Passive
Common
to go
to take
-
to be taken
Non-Perfect
Continuous
to be going
to be taking
-
(to be being taken)
Common
to have gone
to have taken
-
to have been taken
Perfect
Continuous
to have been going
to have been taking
-
-
It is seen from the table, that the passive voice is found only with transitive verbs and there are no perfect
continuous forms in the passive voice. As for the non-perfect continuous passive, forms similar to the one in
brackets, do sometimes occur, although they are exceptionally rare.
The category of perfect
§ 98. The category of perfect finds its expression, as with other verb forms, in the opposition of non-perfect
and perfect forms.
The non-perfect infinitive denotes an action simultaneous with that of the finite verb (I am glad to take part
in it, I am glad to be invited there),
The perfect infinitive always denotes an action prior to that of the finite verb - the predicate of the sentences.
The meaning of priority is invariable with the perfect and perfect continuous infinitive.