# "to-infinitive" is short for "in order to"?



## Ocham

I have an etymological question. I’ve heard “to-infinitive” which means purpose is the shortened form of “in order to”. Is it true? I don’t think it’s true. On the contrary, I guess “in order to” is the form made by adding “in order” to “to-infinitive.” Am I right?


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## boozer

On no authority whatsoever, I agree with you - they are probably not related. My guess is just as good as yours, though.


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## Keith Bradford

That etymology is almost certainly wrong.  Without even looking it up, I'm pretty certain that "to" comes from mediaeval Anglo-Saxon (compare the German "um etwas *zu *tun"), whereas "order" is derived from French and therefore will probably have come into English after 1066.


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## berndf

*Moderator Note: Thread moved to EHL.
*


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## berndf

The infinitive with _to _is what of the original dative-infinitive. In dative, Nouns often function as adverbs, in this case obviously a _dativus finalis_ describing aim or purpose. Adverbial usage of the dative infinitive can already be found in Old English.

EDIT:

I now had time to look for an OE example. This is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for the year 449:

_Anno 449.  Her Martianus and Valentinus onfengon rice, and ricsodon seofon winter.  And on hiera dagum *Hengest and Horsa*, fram Wyrtgeorne gelaþode, Bretta cyninge, *gesohton Bretene *on þæm stede þe is genemned Ypwines-fleot, ærest *Brettum to fultume*,  ac hie eft on hie fuhton.  Se cyning het hie feohtan ongean Peohtas;  and hie swa dydon, and sige hæfdon swa hwær swa hie comon.  Hie þa  sendon to Angle, and heton him sendan maran fultum. Þa sendon hie him  maran fultum. þa comon þa menn of þrim mægþum Germanie: of Ealdseaxum,  of Englum, of Iotum._

_... Hengest and Horsa ... came to Britain ... to help the Britons, ..._

This is not yet a perfect example as _to fultume_ is a common noun and not an infinitive in dative case with _to_ to express purpose but is shows that the basic logic (_to_+dative=adverbial of purpose) was there. I'll keep looking for better examples.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Keith is right. Moreover, English _to_, German _zu_, Dutch _toe_, etc. seem to come from Indo -European DO /do/, a direction operator which we still find in the Russian preposition and prefix "do" with the meaning "in the direction of", "before and as far as (a point in time)" and in Latin, in words such as "donec" and in Italian, in "quam+do —> quando", etc.

GS


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## Cenzontle

I wonder if some of you can answer this question about the "to" that means "in order to", the use with a verb that expresses a purpose:
When it's not a verb, but rather a noun phrase that expresses the purpose, we often get "for":
(1) Ï'm going to Louisiana *for a vacation*, for some relaxation, for a business meeting, etc.
When the purpose is expressed by a verb, we get "to":
(2) I'm going to Louisiana *to see* my true love.
But in the traditional song "Oh Susannah", we get both:
(3) I'm going to Louisiana, my true love *for to see*.
Likewise in the traditional American Negro spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot":
(4) ...comin' *for to carry* me home.
I've always assumed that "for to" represented an older usage, and that our simple "to" was a way of avoiding the apparent sequence of two prepositions.
Can anyone shed light on this?


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## CapnPrep

Cenzontle said:


> I've always assumed that "for to" represented an older usage, and that our simple "to" was a way of avoiding the apparent sequence of two prepositions.


It's the other way around. The preposition _to_ has always been able to express purpose or intention on its own. But as it lost its prepositional identity before the infinitive and started to become a grammatical marker with no meaning at all in many contexts, speakers probably felt the need to reinforce the notion of purpose by adding _for_.

The OED's examples for simple _to_ go back to the late 9th century. The first attestation of _for to_ is from the late 12th century. So it's a very old usage, but definitely not older than simple _to_.


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## berndf

_For_ + _to_-infinitive was a frequent combination in ME where one would simply use the _to_-infinitive today or _for_+gerund. To my knowledge, this didn't exist in Old English. Wiktionary compares it to Danish. It could be Old Norse influence. In ME many word forms and constructs borrowed from northern dialects (which were heavily influenced by ON stemming from to Danelaw times) gained ground in the literary language. Some survived and some didn't and were "pushed back" to dialectal use. This might well be one of them.


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## selfzhouxinrong

Keith Bradford said:


> That etymology is almost certainly wrong.  Without even looking it up, I'm pretty certain that "to" comes from mediaeval Anglo-Saxon (compare the German "um etwas *zu *tun"), whereas "order" is derived from French and therefore will probably have come into English after 1066.


I am looking for the underlying sense of infinitive (to do). Why English needs this structure? Where is this structure come from? I care more about the underlying meaning it represents than the exact source.
What I have known is：
0."in the direction of"
1. represents the sense of purpose，destination，the action of the next step.
- I want to go.
- I decide to do something.
- It is difficult for me to find the answer.
- Study hard to get good grades
2.match situation A  with situation B
- He is said to be 100 years old

Maybe the three meanings above are the same
But I don’t know if this is an accurate understanding
Could you give me some help ? Thank you very much !


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## selfzhouxinrong

_1.He was seen *to* get into a white car with a female.
2.She saw him get into a white car with a female._
Except for the passive voice, Are these two sentences the same meaning？
Why *"to"* is necessary for the passive voice?  I know it is infinitive,  but why Active voice doesn't a need *"to"*?
What is the underlying meaning of *"to"* in this sentence?
If I say: _"He was seen get into a white car with a female."_ What are you feeling?


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## berndf

I don't think it is sensibly possible to explain the use of the preposition _to_ of the full infinitive by the semantics of modern English. It has developed out of the Old English dative infinitive and can only be understood on that background. The infinitive is at its core a verbal noun. In Modern English this is obscured because most nominal uses are taken over by the -_ing_-form, the _gerund_. Like other nouns, the old English infinitive was inflected and had a dative form that was governed by the preposition _to_. This dative form was for adverbial uses of the infinitive. In Midde and Early Modern English, as the old inflection system decayed, the preposition became litte more than an infinitive marker without any semantic significance and the "bare" infinitive, as the infinitive without _to_ is called today, has been confind to a few very specific uses, notably as main verb with modal verbs and in constructions like you sentence 2. in post #11. This is a very old construction know as ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo), where a noun is at the same time direct object of a main clause and subject of a sub clause. This noun is in accusative case and the verb of the sub clause is in infinitive. This construction appears frequently in classical Latin but can also found in different Germanic languages, including English. If this is an early borrowing from Latin or if the Latin and Germanic ACIs originate from a common ancestor or if they accidentally developed in a similar way I cannot tell.


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## Perseas

berndf said:


> The infinitive with _to _is what of the original dative-infinitive.


What do you mean by "dative-infinitive"? To give an example from German: " Dativ: dem Sprechen" or "Dativ: zum Sprechen"?Thanks.


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## berndf

Yes.


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## bearded

Hi Perseas



Perseas said:


> Dativ: dem Sprechen" or "Dativ: zum Sprechen ?





berndf said:


> the old English infinitive_ was inflected and had a dative form_ that was governed by the preposition _to_.


I think that berndf means that - after 'to' - the infinitive took a dative ending. This is no longer the case in modern Germanic languages. 
Zum Sprechen<zu dem Sprechen  semantically corresponds to 'to+dative', but the article wasn't necessary in OE in order to express the dative case.


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## berndf

The dative infinitive was already in OE and OHG firmly  linked to the preposition _to/zi
etan/ezzan_ (nominative)
_to etanne/zi ezzanne_ (dative)
As in _ic hæbbe mete to etanne = I have food to eat_.


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## Perseas

bearded and berndf, thank you both for the clarification.
I didn't know that infinitives were declined and had distinct endings for each case.


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## berndf

Here is an older thread about this:
The Declined/Inflected Infinitive in Germanic


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## elroy

selfzhouxinrong said:


> If I say: _"He was seen get into a white car with a female."_ What are you feeling?


 The sentence is ungrammatical.


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