# Infinitives



## Josh_

I have a question about infinitives in Hebrew.  Infinitives are formed with the preposition *ל* (to) and a form of the root such as:
*לראות* to see
*לרצות* to want
*לדבר* to speak
   With this preposition the infinitives basically translate directly into English.  Just an example:
*אני רוצה **לדבר** עברית* I want to speak Hebrew.

I speak Arabic and in that language if you want to use a sentence such as, “I want to speak Hebrew” you have to conjugate both verbs in the first person singular. Before I started learning Hebrew I just assumed (a dangerous thing to do) that Hebrew would be the same way, both languages being Semitic and all. But, obviously, I know now that that is not the case. So my question is has Hebrew always been this where the infinitives are formed with the preposition *ל* or was it ever different?


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## JLanguage

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> I have a question about infinitives in Hebrew. Infinitives are formed with the preposition *ל* (to) and a form of the root such as:
> *לראות* to see
> *לרצות* to want
> *לדבר* to speak
> With this preposition the infinitives basically translate directly into English. Just an example:
> *אני רוצה עברית* I want to speak Hebrew.
> 
> I speak Arabic and in that language if you want to use a sentence such as, “I want to speak Hebrew” you have to conjugate both verbs in the first person singular. Before I started learning Hebrew I just assumed (a dangerous thing to do) that Hebrew would be the same way, both languages being Semitic and all. But, obviously, I know now that that is not the case. So my question is has Hebrew always been this where the infinitives are formed with the preposition *ל* or was it ever different?


 
My understanding is that technically, Arabic does not have infinitives. Infinitives existed in Biblical Hebrew, dating from over 2600 years ago, but I cannot say whether they have always existed in their present form.


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## Josh_

I just thought that the Hebrew infinitive structure was interesting because it is the same as English. In English we use the word 'to' and then the verb. Other languages have infinitives, but they use other structures, not the preposition 'to'. A thought that I had was that at some point the Hebrew structure of infinitives was changed to be more like English. I'm sure this is not the case, but it is just an interesting thought I had.

You're right, Jlanguage, about Arabic not technically having an infinitive. There are words called MaSdars, which is translated as verbal nouns because they are nouns taken directly from the verb, that can be used in an infinitive-type fashion, but they are technically nouns. And even so, they do not involve the word 'to'.


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## utopia

Arabic has evolved in its own way. Hebrew has originally this verbal form (infinitive) which evolved from an earlier form which is shorter and has no *ל* in it.

We rarely use it in our speech. 

In the Bible you can find the earlier infinitive with *מ, כ, ב *like in: *מֵרְאוֹת* 

בשכבו (read: beshokhvo/beshokhbo - interestingly enough, I don't think that in the Bible they the ancient speakers had decided what form to use, or it might have been a dialectical difference) in his lying etc...

It's a literary form, that can be found in books and sometimes in formal and official publications.

In the Arabic form they use what we have as the nominal verb form - שם פעולה - 

 
לשתות - שתייה, לשמור - שמירה, להצליח - הצלחה...


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## morgoth2604

מממ, היית יכול לכתוב את שאר מהשפט בו נמצאת המילה "בשוכבו? לי זה נשמע כמו "כששכב".


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## Hani_D

It is too late to talk here, but the subject is interesting.​ 
The Hebrew infinitive is NOT really an infinitive. There is no infinitives at all in any Semitic language.​ 
The Hebrew infinitive is just a مصدر or a verbal noun that is preceded by the preposition li- . This occurs in Arabic after certain words:​ 
أنا جاهز للذهاب​ 
The real difference is that in Hebrew the present participle is used as the present tense verb. Whereas in Arabic, it is a noun اسم الفاعل. 
It can be used in Arabic in the same way too:​ 
أراغب أنت عن آلهتي ياإبراهيم؟​ 
أمسافر انت؟​ 
So if we used the Hebrew way to speak about the present in Arabic, we can have the same "infinitive":​ 
أنا مريد لتعلم العبرية​ 
Whereas the Arabic equivalent will mean the future tense in Arabic:​ 
أنا أريد تعلم العبرية​ 
The last sentence can also mean the future in Arabic. But it is not the common usage.​


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## tkekte

Biblical Hebrew already has the L-infinitive, and I think that's the earliest record of written Hebrew... (confirm/deny?)


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## clevermizo

Josh_ said:


> I speak Arabic and in that language if you want to use a sentence such as, “I want to speak Hebrew” you have to conjugate both verbs in the first person singular. Before I started learning Hebrew I just assumed (a dangerous thing to do) that Hebrew would be the same way, both languages being Semitic and all. But, obviously, I know now that that is not the case. So my question is has Hebrew always been this where the infinitives are formed with the preposition *ל* or was it ever different?



As has been mentioned the L-infinitive has evolved from the preposition meaning 'for' or 'to' and a verbal noun. The infinitive in Hebrew is as old as Biblical Hebrew, here is an example from the book of Samuel I (17:39):

*va-yakhgor david et kharbo me3al lmadav, va-yoel la-lekhet ki lo nisah, va-yomer david el-shaul lo ukhal la-lekhet ba-eleh ki lo nisiti

*_And David girded his sword over his garments and he did not want to go with them (on) because he was not accustomed, and David said to Saul, 'I am unable to go in these for I am not used to (them).'

_In this example, we cannot translate L+verbal noun as 'in order to' or 'for' as we can in many others, and it seems to be on par with an actual infinitive.

However in other examples, the verbal noun seems to be used as such, without L:

*u-khshuv david me-hakot et-haplishti...
*_And as David returned from slaying the Philistine (Goliath)...

_Here we have *khshuv* being used idiomatically to mean "and as he..." (in Arabic we would use a construction like وهو راجع or وهو يرجع rather than a مصدر here, the literal Hebrew would correspond to an Arabic *ورجوع داود which I don't believe we can use for this), and *hakot* being used as the noun "slaying." 

As such it seems Biblical Hebrew has some wider use of the verbal noun, however its use with L- overlaps quite strongly with an infinitive at times, such that we may as well call it one, especially from the example above. However we must be careful in other cases when it may be better understood as a preposition meaning 'in order to' or 'for' and a verbal noun.

Note I chose the section from the Nevi'im because that often uses an older rhetoric (and critical analysts would call the rhetoric of the Torah often 'younger'). Whether you come from the religious or critical perspective however, this is some of the primary Hebrew source material, aside archaeological finds. It seems the L+verbal noun used as an infinitive is indeed old.


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## danny_el_travieso

At least one  Semitic language (Akkadian/Babylonian) that I know of utilized infinitives, and at least one Afro-Asiatic language that used infinitives, Ancient Egyptian. I found this topic interesting because while studying Egyptian I wanted to see if other Semitic /Afro-Asiatic languages used infinitives and they obviously don't. 
In Egyptian the infinitive became an integral part of the construction of Coptic verbs which use either the original Egyptian infinitive or the 3rd person Masculine form of the stative/pseudo-participle depending on the movement of stress by adding prefixes or other nouns and if the verb form was intransitive or transitive. 

Arabic and Hebrew may have lost their original infinitive form the way Egyptian lost most of their participal forms which became lexiconized as normal nouns, adjectives or prepositions/conjunctions within Late Egyptian into Coptic.


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