It was settled that I was to write to my father and ask him to come over. MRS. GASK., Cranf., Ch. XIV, 256. iii. Tell the boy to call and see me in a day or two. MORLEY ROBERTS, Time and Thomas Waring, Ch. VII, 70. iv. Here is a family, ... a quiet cheerful family who want exactly such a lady to come and live with them. DICK., Chuz., Ch. XXXVI, 288 a. It was too far for people to come and dine with us. MARRYAT, Olla Podrida. If he likes to come to me and beg my pardon for his rudeness, that's another matter. KEBLE HOWARD, One of the Family, I, Ch. III, 52. v. The child preferred to go and take refuge at Pen's knee. THACK., Pend., I, Ch. XXXII, 344. He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. DICK., Christm. Car.", V, 108. My father and mother want you to go and see them them for a whole day. SWEET, Old Chapel. vi. I should like to send and get my sketches. RUDY. KIPL., The Light that failed, Ch. III, 40. vii. I venture to ask you to stay here, and aid me in consulting with Baron Levy. LYTTON, My Novel, II, X, Ch. XXV, 243. I asked you to stay and aid us by your counsel. ib., 245. If one of you gentlemen will stay and dine with Mr. Higginbotham, it will greatly assist the effect of his medicine. ib., II., XI, Ch. IV, 263. b) Suppression of to is also the rule when, although distinctly two actions are thought of, the second infinitive is the headword of another infinitive with to. The main object of practical grammar is to give or rather, help to give a mastery of foreign languages either living or dead. SWEET, N. E. Gr., § 9. Passengers are particularly cautioned not to open the door, nor attempt to alight from the carriages till the train is at rest at the platform. Notice in London Trains. c) Sometimes the non-repetition of to is, clearly, due to a desire of terseness or rhythm, or to both. "My friends!" said Mr. Pecksniff in reply, "my duty is to build, not speak; to act, not talk; to deal with marble, stone and brick, not language". DICK., Chuz., Ch. XXXV, 281b. I do not, just now, like to think or speak about it. ib., Ch. XXVI, 287a. SARAH GRAND, Our manifold You should hear my poor patient talk of it (sc. the Brent)... you would not know whether to laugh or cry. LYTTON, My Novel, II, XI, Ch. IV, 266. The requirements of metre are, evidently, responsible for the suppression of to in: They love to see the flaming forge | And hear the bellows roar. LONGF., Vil. Blacks. d) In a great many cases no reason can be given for the suppression of to beyond economy of language, which often becomes manifest in the rejection of what SWEET (N. E. Gr., § 58) calls form-words, words, that is, which do not convey any idea by themselves. It is only natural that anything like consistency, or uniformity of practice, in the repetition of to where it is not needed is far to seek even with one and the same writer. Thus it would be difficult to account for the varied practice observed in the following quotations taken from a few consecutive pages of one and the same composition, in which, however, the cases of nonrepetition outnumber those of repetition. i. She was not prepared to betray the one, and entrap the other. LYTTON, My Novel, II, X, Ch. XX, 242. He had only time to rise and withdraw to the window. ib. All we can do to-day is to remove my sister, and let the execution proceed. ib., 244. Shame on me if I could be mean enough to boast of love, and enforce a suit, at such a moment. ib., 247. ii. He wrote a brief line to Levy, charging him quietly to dismiss the execution, I have lived to feel the truth of your words, and to bless the lesson. ib., I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. ib., 258. Now to gain time, and to baffle the usurer. ib., II, XI, Ch. VI, 272. 54. For the rest it may be observed that, when none of the above considerations make themselves felt, there is a tendency to repeat to. He looked earnestly in my face, and began to fancy a resemblance to his sister, and to think I might be her child. MARY ANN LAMB, The Sailor Uncle, 2. (The World's Clas.) to hear her dignified Frank, however, did not pause to notice her countenance salutation. LYTTON, My Novel, II, X, Ch. XXV, 241. Many a time he (sc. the Prince Consort) must have felt inclined to renounce it (sc. the scheme of the Great Exhibition), or at least to regret that he had ever taken it up. Mc. CARTHY, Short. Hist., Ch. IX, 108. Thus naturally in the case of the second infinitive standing in adversative relation to the first. I came not to upbraid, but to serve and to free you. Scorr, Kenilw., Ch. IV, 45. He told Dolf never to despair, but to throw physic to the dogs. WASH. IRV., Dolf Heyl. (SÃоF., Handl., I, 138). 55. a) In a succession of three or more infinitives in identical grammatical function to is mostly repeated before each of them. The following quotation may be considered to represent normal practice: The Tories must come into office free to raise taxation, to defend our own markets, and to meet the great Dominions in their demand for reciprocal trade. Eng. Rev., No. 32, 624. b) It is only natural that for rhetorical reasons this practice is not seldom deviated from. To thrust on his boots change his dressing-robe for a frock-coat snatch TENSE AND VOICE OF THE INFINITIVE Introductory Observations. 56. Like the gerund and the present participle, the infinitive is capable of expressing the distinctions of tense and voice. 57. The infinitive shows the distinction of tense only when its time-sphere differs from that of the predication with which it is connected. a) In the case of its time-sphere being anterior to that of the latter, this is now done by the auxiliary to have, mutative verbs using to be for this purpose in earlier stages of the language: Imperfect Infinitive: to give; Perfect Infinitive: to have given. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech. MAC., Hist., I, Ch. I. 4. T. It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have embarked his property The tense of the infinitive is not affected by a change of He toils (toiled or will toil) to earn a living. b) The ordinary auxiliaries of the future tense, shall and will, having no infinitive, relative futurity is mostly left unexpressed. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined. DICK., Great Expect., And there, in daily doubt | Whether to live or die, for many a week | Hid Note. It stands to reason that the numerous secondary expedients to express modified futurity, such as to be going, to be about, to be near, to be inact, etc., discussed in my treatise about Tense (68–71), would sometimes be available to supply the want. The weather seems to be going to change. He seemed to be about to leave the room. The letter seemed to be about to be dropped into the pillar-box. About + infinitive, whether active or passive, occurs rather frequently No one could have had the slightest foreboding of anything about to happen. A remnant of one (sc. a fleet) about to be put up to auction. RUSKIN, Time The attributive use of about + passive infinitive seems to be very rare. The about-to-be-released prisoner tried to explain that Irish Unionists were loyal to England. The New Statesman, No. 95, 403 b. 58. The distinction of voice is expressed by means of the auxiliary to be: Imperfect Passive Infinitive: to be given; Perfect Passive Infinitive: to have been given. i. Mrs. Hood begged to be left to herself. GISSING, A Life's Morning, Ch. V, 82. ii. Now Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. DICK., Great Expect., Ch. XVI, 145. His crime was to have been born in Germany. GALSW., Tatterdemalion, I, IV, 81. Tense-shifting in Infinitive constructions. 59. It is a well-known fact that an Englishman is inclined to say I intended to have come, but [etc.] rather than I had intended (= should have intended) to come, but [etc.], i. e. to express the notion of completed action in this combination not in the finite verb, where it logically belongs, but in the following infinitive. This remarkable tense-shifting, as it may be called, is to be observed in a good many similar combinations of very common occurrence and has, naturally, excited the interest of many scholars, and been the subject of not a few grammatical disquisitions. See STOFFEL, Taalstudie IX; HODGSON, Errors in the Use of English, 98 ff; HORN, Herrig Archiv, C XIV, 370; A. SCHMIDT, Shak. Lex., s. v. have, 1; The King's English, 154 f; MÄTZNER, Eng. Gram., III, 63 f; ABBOT, Shak. Gram.", § 360. ') JESPERSEN, Mod. Eng. Gram., 15. 89. 60. a) Tense-shifting of the above description is unavoidable when the infinitive is connected with any of certain defective verbs which have no past participle and, consequently, no pluperfect conditional, such as can, may, must, ought (or should). i. If I had not been so foolish as to enter into that agreement with Messrs. Meeson, I could have got the money by selling my new book easily enough. RID. HAG., Mees. Will, Ch. IV, 38. (with which compare the sequel of this sentence: and I should have been able to take Jeannie abroad.) ii. They might have been great people in the country, they preferred being little people in town; they might have chosen friends among persons of respectability and rank, they preferred being chosen as acquaintance by persons of 'ton'. LYTTON. iii. It would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society. I must have given you up. JANE AUSTEN, Emma, Ch. VII, 51. T. But for him I must have died abroad. DICK., Chuz., Ch. XLIII, 337 b. iv. I ought to have married; yes I should ha' married long ago. A Life's Morn., Ch. IX, 137. GISSING, Note. «) When the present indicative must is followed by a perfect infinitive, there is, of course, no tense-shifting. The spirit must have heard him thinking. DICK., Christm. Car. Experience, no doubt, served him there; but he must have had an instinct that it was dangerous with one so sensitive. GALSW., Beyond, Ch. IV, 42: 6) In passing it may here be observed that could when followed by a perfect infinitive is always a preterite conditional. Such a sentence as Hij zei dat hij niet had kunnen komen cannot, therefore, be translated by *He said that he could not have come, the correct translation being He said that he had not been able to come. b) The same tense-shifting is regularly observed in connection with will, whose past participle is used only by way of exception, and need, which, as has been observed in 7, resembles, in its grammatical function, the verbs mentioned in a). See also 7, b, 3; 10; 11, b; and 12, c. He beat me then as if he would have beaten me to death. DICK., Cop., Poor Betty!... she need not have given way to tears on the door-step. c) Also the construction with the archaic or dialectal durst regularly exhibits tense-shifting. For the rest ordinary literary English has the logical construction had dared or should (or would) have dared + imperfect infinitive, colloquial English, apparently, favouring daren't + perfect infinitive. |