"Infinitive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fertile source of doubt is the fact that Hebrew verbs in the indicative mood lack the present, the past imperfect, the pluperfect, the future perfect, and other tenses most frequently employed in other languages; in the imperative and infinitive moods they are wanting in all except the present, and a subjunctive mood does not exist. (104) Now, although all these defects in moods and tenses may be supplied by certain fundamental rules of the language with ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... beau lui dire, 'it is no use your telling him.' Avoir beau infinitive is ironical, and elliptical for avoir beau temps pour, i.e. to have a fine opportunity, but to no purpose; cf. the English 'it is all very fine for you to ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to you! She's promised to give me a little book," he went on dejectedly, "'One Hundred Common Errors in Writing and Speaking,' and she says the split infinitive is a crime in this nineteenth century. But, say, this paper would never get to press if I took time ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... The infinitive of a verb of motion, as {gehen} or {reisen}, being implied, an idiom often met with after the modal auxiliaries {mssen, knnen, sollen, wollen, drfen}, ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... avra, and ren the conditional past, avrena, "I should have been." The need for a passive voice is avoided by the simple method of putting the pronoun in the accusative; thus, daca signifies "I strike," dacal (me strike) "I am struck." The infinitive is avi; avyta, "being;" avnyta, "having been;" avmyta, "about to be." These are declined like nouns, of which latter there are six forms, the masculine in a, o, and y, the feminine in a, oo, and e; the plurals ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... nouns. But in verbs there is a change in moods, as when the infinitive is used for the imperative, as ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... boy," he said heartily. "Though I am hanged if I know what you mean by a split infinitive. I hope if its improper, I've never inadvertently done it ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... language. That termination of en, as in deluden, salubren, seems to me the sign of the present tense of the plural form of the verb. That other termination of tar, as in ebuntar, carantar, I suppose to be the sign of the infinitive. Depend upon it that this language is one of absolute regularity, undeformed by the results of human folly and sorrow, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... moods gives 480 forms of third person. The first and second persons have the same, minus the inanimate subject, or 20 each for each tense, making 640 more, or 1120 all together in those three moods. The imperative singular and plural, and the infinitive present and past, and the participles, add 25. Then there is the additional form for the first person plural treated under "Pronouns," running through all the sixteen tenses, common and emphatic, animate and inanimate and intransitive, 96 more—making ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... extreme multiplicity of all its forms: e.g. each verb having not only active, middle, and passive voices, but the primitive active having not less than thirty-five derivative forms and the passive thirteen. The "noun of action,"—infinitive with article (to akonein) of the Greek—is again different for each voice or form; and the primitive can take any of twenty-two forms, which are not compounded according to any rule. Again, there ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first contrived to pick up the rudiments of Armenian—'Est verborum transitivorum, quorum infinitivus—' but I forgot, you don't understand Latin. He says there are certain transitive verbs, whose infinitive is in outsaniel; the preterite in outsi; the imperative in one; for example—parghatsout-saniem, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Los Angeles newspaper devoted a whole page to the coming event. Adjective was piled on adjective, split infinitive on split infinitive. The dinner was to be given in the ballroom of the hotel.... The bank accounts of the assembled guests would total $400,000,000.... The terrapin had been specially imported from Baltimore.... The decorations were to be magnificent beyond the wildest ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... author, who objected, with some reason, that in all his book there was no mention of a dog of that description, or, indeed, of any dog at all. The book was wrapped in an outer cover that bore a recommendation of its contents, starting with a hideous split infinitive and describing it as an exquisite social comedy written from within. On the whole it seemed to the author that his book was flying false and undesirable colours, and since art lies outside the domesticities, he was hardly relieved when his wife told him that she thought ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... etymologies which one learns after a while to reject with contempt." But Minsheu is substantially right, if we substitute Old Fr. dis mal, which is found as early as 1256. Old Fr. di, a day, also survives in the names of the days of the week, lundi, etc. In remainder and remnant we have the infinitive and present participle of an obsolete Old French verb derived from Lat. reman[e]re. Manor and power are also Old French infinitives, the first now only used as a noun (manoir), the second represented by pouvoir. Misnomer is the Anglo-French ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... consequence can be gathered, that Adam was taught the names of all Figures, Numbers, Measures, Colours, Sounds, Fancies, Relations; much less the names of Words and Speech, as Generall, Speciall, Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative, Optative, Infinitive, all which are usefull; and least of all, of Entity, Intentionality, Quiddity, and other significant words of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... man," said Francesca, "has split an infinitive, but he probably did it under the orders of the ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... a knowledge of elementary grammar, pronouns, numerals, the common prepositions, and modal and auxiliary verbs are not given. Of strong verbs only the vowel change, including the quantity when different from the infinitive, is indicated, unless the verb shows further irregularities. Intransitive verbs that take sein contrary to rule are marked with 's'. The prefix of separable verbs is followed by -. Of nouns only the plural is given, unless they belong to the so-called ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... between the two nations.' 'The men rowed vigorously for fear of the tide turning against us.' But most examples of the construction without the possessive form are OBVIOUSLY DUE TO MERE SLOVENLINESS.... 'In case of your being absent': here being is an infinitive [verbal, or participial, noun] qualified by the possessive your. 'In case of you being present': here being would have to be construed as a participle. The possessive construction is, in this case, the primitive and regular ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres) |
