# The Declined/Inflected Infinitive in Germanic



## Yondlivend

Hello,

I would like to know a bit more about the origins and nature of the inflected infinitive in Germanic languages.  From what I’ve read, it appears to be best preserved in West Germanic (Gothic having no traces of it at all, and as for North Germanic, I haven’t heard anything about it). 

In Old English, the infinitive had two basic forms: the uninflected (corresponding to the nominative/accusative forms) and the inflected (corresponding to the dative).  It only existed in the singular. Supposedly though, it once followed a paradigm that can be seen in the OE noun wēsten:



SingularPluralNominativewēstenwēstennuAccusativewēstenwēstennuGenitivewēstenneswēstennaDativewēstennewēstennum

 
The genitive form of the infinitive died out in Prehistoric Old English.  As an example of an infinitive in its inflected and uninflected forms, here is the Old English verb for “to bear”:
Beran (uninflected), tō berenne (inflected).  The ending had different forms in different dialects and at different times, and often appeared as –anne due to influence from the uninflected infinitive.

It originally had a /j/ in the stem, as it underwent Gemination and i-mutation, and it can be seen in Old Saxon, which preserved the /j/ where other West Germanic languages didn’t.     

It appears that at one point or another, the infinitive had singular and plural forms for the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, and there were still remnants of these forms when these languages were written down (there are attestations of the instrumental and dative plural, though uncommon, in Old High German such as _mit ferrennu _(instrumental) and _halsennum _(dative plural)).

My main questions are:

1.      What functions did they have?  What did they express?
2.      Are there any remnants of these forms in modern Germanic languages?
3.      When were they formed?  Were they an innovation after the Proto-Germanic period or did they only survive in West Germanic?

With regards to my third question, can it be assumed that these forms, which exhibit Gemination and i-mutation (at least in OE), can they be said to have existed before this period, or were they simply modeled after verbs that already had this paradigm?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:  My sources for the information above:
http://archive.org/stream/einfhrungindas00baesuoft#page/126/mode/2up (in German; I've never studied German but using a dictionary can get a basic idea of what certain areas say.  I thought it might be useful to add these sources too, so that if any German speakers find important information that I've missed, they can point it out.  I came across this when I was looking for an example of the instrumental form of the infinitive)
http://archive.org/stream/einfhrungindas00baesuoft#page/202/mode/2up (in German; from the same book as above, but related to the previous section (they guide the reader to each other, that is to say they reference each other))
http://archive.org/stream/infinitiveinang01callgoog#page/n8/mode/2up
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI...&q=West Germanic inflected infinitive&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=r2...g&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=berenne&f=false


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## LilianaB

Hi. I can briefly tell you it had the same functions as noun declensions do, except the suffix indicating the case attached to the verb, and so did the suffix indicating plurality, in certain languages.


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## berndf

Yondlivend said:


> It originally had a /j/ in the stem, as it underwent Gemination and i-mutation, and it can be seen in Old Saxon, which preserved the /j/ where other West Germanic languages didn’t.


I think you confuse this with the Proto-German causative suffix -jan-, e.g. _to fall_: _fallanaN > fallan > fallen > fall_ and _to fell_ (i.e. _to cause to fall_): _falljanaN > falljan > f_æ_llan > fellen > fell
_


Yondlivend said:


> 1.      What functions did they have?  What did they express?


The regular function of the infinitive is as a verbal noun. In English this function is obscured by the fact that the nominal derivation suffix _-ing_ became grammaticalized as a gerund-suffix. The original use of the infinitive was roughly like the gerund in modern English. Compare e.g. the English and German sentences _Swimm*ing* is fun_ and _Schwimm*en* macht Spaß_. And as a noun it is natural to have declined forms.


Yondlivend said:


> 2.      Are there any remnants of these forms in modern Germanic languages?


The dative infinitive sort of survived in modern English. It is marked by the preposition "to" (also in Old English the "to" was already firmly attached to the dative infinitive). I has survived because of the adverbial use of the dative as in _he came to eat, I love to see films_.


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## Roy776

Old High German also had inflected infinitives, and I'd say, we still have remnants of them nowadays, although we don't really use them much apart from the nominative and the dative singular.

OHG:
*Infinitive:* _nëman_ 
*Genitive:* nëmannes
*Dative:* nëmanne

The actual German declension is reflected in this declension. And we can easily create the current forms of them.

Nominative *-0 ending*. (das Nehmen)
Genitive *-s/-es ending*. (des Nehmens)
Dative (mostly archaic) *-e ending*. (dem Nehmen)

I wouldn't actually use them (at least not the verb nehmen), but it's still possible to decline the verbs to have those forms. I provide three example sentences anyway. I'd say that only the third one is a proper sentence.

Das Nehmen eines Lebens steht unter Strafe.
Die Strafe des Nehmens von Drogen ist Sucht und Abhängigkeit.
Dem Nehmen von Drogen steht die allgemeine Gesellschaft kritisch gegenüber.


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## Yondlivend

First of all thank you all for your replies .



berndf said:


> I think you confuse this with the Proto-German causative suffix -jan-, e.g. _to fall_: _fallanaN > fallan > fallen > fall_ and _to fell_ (i.e. _to cause to fall_): _falljanaN > falljan > f_æ_llan > fellen > fell_


Well, possibly but in the fourth link it says the case forms of the infinitive were based on "-nja-stem" nouns, and in my fifth link there is a proposed reconstruction of the formation of "berenne" as "ber- + -*anja- + *-i."  All I was saying was that these forms had /j/ in them and the inflections exhibited Gemination and i-mutation, and according to the second link (if I read it correctly), the /j/ can be seen in Old Saxon (which preserved /j/ where other languages didn't):


> Das i der Endung, das im As. so gut erhalten bleibt, ist im Ahd. schon verschwunden.  Dagegen besteht die durch i hervorgerufene Gemination des _n_ bis auf wenige Ausnahmen _(uuenones, zellenne _O, öfter OFr, gewöhnlich Will und LeidWill).


The reason I mentioned the presence of /j/ was to ask if that had any relevance as to how old these formations were (in other words can we then say that it's been around at least before Gemination occured).


berndf said:


> The regular function of the infinitive is as a verbal noun. In English this function is obscured by the fact that the nominal derivation suffix _-ing_ became grammaticalized as a gerund-suffix. The original use of the infinitive was roughly like the gerund in modern English. Compare e.g. the English and German sentences _Swimm*ing* is fun_ and _Schwimm*en* macht Spaß_. And as a noun it is natural to have declined forms.


I've heard that the infinitive also had that function in Old English, yes (just as it does in Spanish).  While that usage makes sense to me, I couldn't picture other examples.  What I'm trying to say is, I've heard of genitive and instrumental forms of the infinitive, but I've never seen a sentence using them to get a better idea of how they work, and what they were replaced with.


berndf said:


> The dative infinitive sort of survived in modern English. It is marked by the preposition "to" (also in Old English the "to" was already firmly attached to the dative infinitive). I has survived because of the adverbial use of the dative as in _he came to eat, I love to see films_.


I see.



Roy776 said:


> Dem Nehmen von Drogen steht die allgemeine Gesellschaft kritisch gegenüber.


Sentences are definitely very helpful in understanding its usage, so I appreciate you putting them up for me.  As I said earlier, I've never taken German, so I had to look up most of the words here, but I think I have a better sense of its function now.  As for the sentence, does it mean something like: "The average/general society is critical about taking drugs," "society as a whole is critical about taking drugs" or "...is critically opposed to (the) taking (of) drugs"?


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## Roy776

The first one of your sentences is the correct translation  Sorry for that, I forgot to translate it.


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## berndf

Yondlivend said:


> I've heard that the infinitive also had that function in Old English, yes (just as it does in Spanish).  While that usage makes sense to me, I couldn't picture other examples.  What I'm trying to say is, I've heard of genitive and instrumental forms of the infinitive, but I've never seen a sentence using them to get a better idea of how they work, and what they were replaced with.


I can't help you with instrumental forms. They were already very rare in OHG and OE. For genitive is a relatively easy: All forms _of_+gerund eventually replaced a genitive infinitive: e.g.: _the history of swimming_; German: _die Geschichte des Schwimmens_.


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## Yondlivend

That's very helpful, thank you.  I have a much clearer picture of how it worked now.  

Do you happen to know what purpose the plural forms served?  (I'm sorry if this should be obvious and I'm just not seeing it)


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## berndf

This is the first time I hear anything about plural forms. Are you sure about that?


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## Yondlivend

berndf said:


> This is the first time I hear anything about plural forms. Are you sure about that?


Quoting from the fourth link (Reconstructing Languages and Cultures):


> Old High German has a very elaborate case paradigm of the infinitive... Very few examples are found of instrumentals (_mit ferrennu_) and of *dative plurals* (_halsennum_)...


So it's rare, but attested.


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## Roy776

berndf's reaction is very well understandable. I can not even fathom the usage of such forms. What for would there be a need for the plurality of actions? I'm going to try to find out more about those forms, if in any way possible. It'd be pretty interesting if someone could provide some more information on them.


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> berndf's reaction is very well understandable. I can not even fathom the usage of such forms. What for would there be a need for the plurality of actions? I'm going to try to find out more about those forms, if in any way possible. It'd be pretty interesting if someone could provide some more information on them.


That's exactly why I asked.  I didn't see the purpose of it.

As for instrumental forms, I wonder if they would be used where we use "by verb+ing" as in "I preserve my culture by writing down old folk tales" or in places where we use "to verb" (where Middle English would have used "for to + verb") as in "I came to speak with the governor" which means "I came for the purpose of speaking with the governor."


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## berndf

Yondlivend said:


> Quoting from the fourth link (Reconstructing Languages and Cultures):
> 
> So it's rare, but attested.


Doesn't seem that author knows it either. Given the relatively small size of the OHG corpus, "very few" probably means those are single occurrences. I have no idea what a plural should mean.


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## Roy776

Yondlivend said:


> That's exactly why I asked.  I didn't see the purpose of it.
> 
> As for instrumental forms, I wonder if they would be used where we use "by verb+ing" as in "I preserve my culture by writing down old folk tales" or in places where we use "to verb" (where Middle English would have used "for to + verb") as in "I came to speak with the governor" which means "I came for the purpose of speaking with the governor."



In current Slavic languages, the instrumental case is indeed used for cases of *by means of*. I don't know about other Germanic languages, but that certainly wasn't the case in Old High German. It existed only in remnants (and only in the masculine declension, if I remember correctly), but it was like the locative case. It described where something took place.

*Na tym placu walczyli.*(Polish: They fought on this field. - Locative)
*In disu feldu strîtun sie.* (OHG: They fought on this field. - Instrumental)
*Auf diesem Feld(e) kämpften sie.* (NHG - Dative)

*Diu* is the neuter demonstrative pronoun in the instrumental case (the other genders had no instrumental form and instead used the dative one). *Feldu* is the neuter instrumental declension of *feld*.


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> In current Slavic languages, the instrumental case is indeed used for cases of *by means of*. I don't know about other Germanic languages, but that certainly wasn't the case in Old High German. It existed only in remnants (and only in the masculine declension, if I remember correctly), but it was like the locative case. It described where something took place.
> 
> *Na tym placu walczyli.*(Polish: They fought on this field. - Locative)
> *In diu feldu strîtun sie.* (OHG: They fought on this field. - Instrumental)
> 
> *Diu* is the neuter demonstrative pronoun in the instrumental case (the other genders had no instrumental form and instead used the dative one). *Feldu* is the neuter instrumental declension of *feld*.


Interesting.  In OE, its only distinct forms were in the masculine and neuter of the article (singular þȳ and þon, as well as other variants; plural þȳs) and in strong singular masculine and neuter adjectives (gōde, tile for example, which were the strong singular instrumental forms of two adjectives meaning "good.")  

It was retained in certain phrases (for þȳ (conj.) = because, for þȳ (adv.)= therefore, þȳ læs þe = lest), though in the first two "for" did not appear to be necessary; the article could be used on its own with the same meaning. 

It was also used with certain prepositions (such as _mid_), though I believe this became less common in later texts.

I'm pretty sure your sentence in OE would be:

*Hīe fuhton on þissum felda*.  If you wanted to use the definite article, you could say: *Hīe fuhton on þām felda*.  Old English would use the dative. 

According to one OE book (Electronic Introduction to Old English), the instrumental served three main functions:

1. Instrument, means, manner.
2. Accompaniment.
3. Expressions of time.


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## Roy776

Yondlivend said:


> Interesting.  In OE, its only distinct forms were in the masculine and neuter of the article (singular þȳ and þon, as well as other variants; plural þȳs) and in strong singular masculine and neuter adjectives (gōde, tile for example, which were the strong singular instrumental forms of two adjectives meaning "good.")
> 
> It was retained in certain phrases (for þȳ (conj.) = because, for þȳ (adv.)= therefore, þȳ læs þe = lest), though in the first two "for" did not appear to be necessary; the article could be used on its own with the same meaning.
> 
> It was also used with certain prepositions (such as _mid_), though I believe this became less common in later texts.
> 
> I'm pretty sure your sentence in OE would be:
> 
> *Hīe fuhton on þissum felda*.  If you wanted to use the definite article, you could say: *Hīe fuhton on þām felda*.  Old English would use the dative.
> 
> According to one OE book (Electronic Introduction to Old English), the instrumental served three main functions:
> 
> 1. Instrument, means, manner.
> 2. Accompaniment.
> 3. Expressions of time.



Yes, expression of time is also a function of the Old High German instrumental. Means and manner and accompaniment are not.
The forms OHG retained are the following:
1) Masculine and neuter declensions. (*Tag - tagu / feld - feldu*)
2) Adjectival declension (*blind = blint - blintu*, wether its masculine or neuter doesn't matter. Both are blintu)
3) Definite articles (*3rd person singular neuter - diu*)
4) Demonstrative pronouns (*3rd person singular neuter - disiu/disu*)
5) Interrogative pronoun (*what = waz - wiu*) Interestingly, wër (who, though an interrogative pronoun) has no instrumental form. Every other interrogative pronoun had an instrumental form ending in -u.

It should also be noted that definite articles did not yet exist as a set rule in OHG. They slowly developed during the period and their development was finished by the beginning of the MHG period. At first, the definite articles *der* *(m), daz (n), diu (f) (singular)* and *die (m), diu (n), dio (f) (plural)* were used as demonstrative pronouns. In some early dialects, they were also written with a th at the beginning, corresponding to the sound of the English TH (Therefore: ther, thaz, thiu and so on).


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> Yes, expression of time is also a function of the Old High German instrumental. Means and manner and accompaniment are not.
> The forms OHG retained are the following:
> 1) Masculine and neuter declensions. (*Tag - tagu / feld - feldu*)
> 2) Adjectival declension (*blind = blint - blintu*, wether its masculine or neuter doesn't matter. Both are blintu)
> 3) Definite articles (*3rd person singular neuter - diu*)
> 4) Demonstrative pronouns (*3rd person singular neuter - disiu/disu*)
> 5) Interrogative pronoun (*what = waz - wiu*) Interestingly, wër (who, though an interrogative pronoun) has no instrumental form. Every other interrogative pronoun had an instrumental form ending in -u.


For Old English:
1) No (I'm pretty sure it was identical to the dative).
2) Yes (Only singular, same for masc. and neuter).
3) Yes (Only singular, same for masc. and neuter).
4) Yes.
5) Yes.  This is where Modern English "why" comes from (OE hwȳ and hwon, either could be used for masculine or neuter.  They probably showed the same variant forms at þȳ)

Maybe at some point when the instrumental form of the infinitive existed, it was used in the circumstances I mentioned above in post #12 (at least in Prehistoric Old English).  

Since OHG instrumental form of the infinitive, I wonder what its uses were?  The only example I found has it following the preposition _mit_.  I wonder if there are any uses of the instrumental infinitive in Old Saxon too...


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## berndf

Roy776 said:


> 5) Interrogative pronoun (*what = waz - wiu*) Interestingly, wër (who, though an interrogative pronoun) has no instrumental form. Every other interrogative pronoun had an instrumental form ending in -u.


Well, at least here the instrumental retained it "natural" meaning as expressing a means (_wiu_, ModG _wie = how_).


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## Roy776

The usage of the instrumental case actually made me think about the plurals of verb infintives. It's only speculation, but couldn't it be that the singular expressed a single action and the plural repitition or the action in general? The Romance languages still do that nowadays in the past tense.
*Nos encontrabamos *and *nos encontramos* (*We met several times* and *we met*)
Of course, I can't reproduce a possible sentence in current German, as we no longer have plural infinitives, but it's a thought that popped into my head. Sometimes, we still express the process of doing something with *beim (bei + Dative article)*. Bei is a preposition normally referring to a location and (sometimes, I suppose in dialects) time. So maybe we could say.

Ih bin bî diu lesanu. (I'm reading)
Bî lesanum fordart man anadâht. (Reading needs concentration)


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> The usage of the instrumental case actually made me think about the plurals of verb infintives. It's only speculation, but couldn't it be that the singular expressed a single action and the plural repitition or the action in general? The Romance languages still do that nowadays in the past tense.
> *Nos encontrábamos *and *nos encontramos* (*We met several times* and *we met*)


That's aspect though, isn't it?  The first is in the imperfect.

But... I think I see where you're going with this.  Perhaps with plural infinitives it might have been possible to make the distinction between:
"It's a pleasure to meet you (this one time)"
"Meeting you is a pleasure (all the time, whenever we meet)" or "Meeting you many times (encountering you several times during a period of time; a day, for example as in "many times per day") is a pleasure."



Roy776 said:


> Of course, I can't reproduce a possible sentence in current German, as we no longer have plural infinitives, but it's a thought that popped into my head. Sometimes, we still express the process of doing something with *beim (bei + Dative article)*. So maybe we could say:
> 
> Ih bin bî diu lesanu. (I'm reading)
> Bî lesanum fordart man anadâht. (Reading needs concentration)


Word-by-word (as in a gloss), what would those sentences be? (For example, the first would be rendered "I am by the(Dat.? Inst.?) read(Dat.? Inst.?)")


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## berndf

Roy776 said:


> Of course, I can't reproduce a possible sentence in current German, as we no longer have plural infinitives, but it's a thought that popped into my head. Sometimes, we still express the process of doing something with *beim (bei + Dative article)*. Bei is a preposition normally referring to a location and (sometimes, I suppose in dialects) time. So maybe we could say.
> 
> Ih bin bî diu lesanu. (I'm reading)
> Bî lesanum fordart man anadâht. (Reading needs concentration)


If I understand this correctly, _thie andere iungoron mit ferennu quamum_ (_the other disciples came by ship-faring_) is the only attestation of the (singular) instrumental infinitive. The meaning is clearly instrumental (indicating a means) and not locative. I am not quite sure where you got this





Roy776 said:


> ...but it was like the locative case. It described where something took place.




from. Probably you think of uses like _hiu tagu_ = ModG _heute = today_ (literally: _[on the] here day_). I accept that but I don't think you can present the WGermanic instrumental as being completely detached from its original use.


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## LilianaB

Roy776 said:


> In current Slavic languages, the instrumental case is indeed used for cases of *by means of*. I don't know about other Germanic languages, but that certainly wasn't the case in Old High German. It existed only in remnants (and only in the masculine declension, if I remember correctly), but it was like the locative case. It described where something took place.
> 
> *Na tym placu walczyli.*(Polish: They fought on this field. - Locative)
> 
> *In disu feldu strîtun sie.* (OHG: They fought on this field. - Instrumental)
> *Auf diesem Feld(e) kämpften sie.* (NHG - Dative)
> 
> *Diu* is the neuter demonstrative pronoun in the instrumental case (the other genders had no instrumental form and instead used the dative one). *Feldu* is the neuter instrumental declension of *feld*.



Hi, Roy. What exactly are you trying to illustrate with this example in Polish? I think it is a regular use where only the noun is declined -- nothing is going on in this respect with the verb. 

As to some other things, Gothic might have had similar constructions to the ones mentioned, I am pretty sure, but I would have to check the details.


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## Roy776

berndf said:


> If I understand this correctly, _thie andere iungoron mit ferennu quamum_ (_the other disciples came by ship-faring_)  is the only attestation of the (singular) instrumental infinitive. The  meaning is clearly instrumental (indicating a means) and not locative. I  am not quite sure where you got this from. Probably you think of uses  like _hiu tagu_ = ModG _heute = today_ (literally: _[on the] here day_).  I accept that but I don't think you can present the WGermanic  instrumental as being completely detached from its original use.



Source: Wikipedia
*The instrumental case, which is used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed.*
Though  you're right, it's clearly instrumental, indicating means. Wikipedia is  not always the most accurate source, but the first one you get.



LilianaB said:


> Hi, Roy. What exactly are you trying to illustrate with this example in Polish? I think it is a regular use where only the noun is declined -- nothing is going on in this respect with the verb.
> 
> As to some other things, Gothic might have had similar constructions to the ones mentioned, I am pretty sure, but I would have to check the details.



I wanted to show that the current Slavic languages use the locative case but OHG seemed to use the instrumental case.


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## LilianaB

One case related to location is locative and the other one is instrumental, in Slavic languages. What I meant was the verb does not change or take any special endings -- only the noun changes. You have to use a different case depending whether you are in that place or going toward that place. The same is true about Baltic languages.


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## Roy776

I know how to use the cases in Polish, Liliana. And I know that both the instrumental and the instrumental are used for the description of where. Accusative is for direction.
Jestem na placu. (I'm on the field - Locative)
Jestem za Tobą. (I'm behind you - Instrumental)
But that doesn't matter here.
Furthermore, the verb was completely unimportant in that sentence. The important part was *on the field*.


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## LilianaB

Jestem na placu - Ide na plac. I am in the yard -- I am going to the yard. The form of the verb does not change in Slavic languages as it did in some Old Germanic languages. Certain forms of the verb took different endings depending on the case. In the two examples the verb is totally different, but there is no special ending attached to the verb to indicate the case.


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## Roy776

Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? We're drifting  offtopic because of this. The verb was COMPLETELY unimportant. I could  have even left it out, but I wanted to provide a complete example  sentence. It was only meant to show that two languages of the same root  (Proto-Indo-European) use two different cases (or at least case names)  for one and the same thing: where something happens. And in this case:  Only for ON something. Not towards something, not behind something, not  above something, not anything. So let's get back to topic, which  originally was the usage of the plural infinitives.



Yondlivend said:


> That's aspect though, isn't it?  The first is in the imperfect.
> 
> But... I think I see where you're going with this.  Perhaps with plural infinitives it might have been possible to make the distinction between:
> "It's a pleasure to meet you (this one time)"
> "Meeting you is a pleasure (all the time, whenever we meet)" or "Meeting you many times (encountering you several times during a period of time; a day, for example as in "many times per day") is a pleasure."



That's exactly what I meant. Remember, although they are used like nouns, they are still verbs and could take a perfective or an imperfective aspect. So I think it's not completely off to say that this could have been the distinction between singular and plural. But it's only speculation. I've got nothing to prove this theory.


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## LilianaB

The question was about verbs that behave differently because of inflection or declensions. It is normal that nouns change forms in different cases in inflectional languages, such as Polish -- this is why I was wondering why you provided an example of a regularly declined noun. Perhaps to illustrate something, but I was not sure why.


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## Yondlivend

berndf said:


> If I understand this correctly, _thie andere iungoron mit ferennu quamum_ (_the other disciples came by ship-faring_) is the only attestation of the (singular) instrumental infinitive.


So that's the sentence!  Very interesting.  This might have been common usage at one time...


Roy776 said:


> Source: Wikipedia
> *The instrumental case, which is used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed.*
> Though you're right, it's clearly instrumental, indicating means. Wikipedia is not always the most accurate source, but the first one you get.


I followed your link, and that wasn't what it said.  The first line in that article is:


> The *instrumental case* (abbreviated *ins* or *instr*; also called the _eighth case_) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the _instrument_ or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action.


I looked up your exact sentence, and I was led to a section of the article "Latin Grammar" about the *Locative Case *(its under the nouns section, just scroll down a bit):


> The *locative *case, which is used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed. The locative case is extremely marginal in Latin...





LilianaB said:


> As to some other things, Gothic might have had similar constructions to the ones mentioned, I am pretty sure, but I would have to check the details.


Which constructions are you referring to?  Gothic didn't have inflected forms of the infinitive, and I'm almost positive that there were no traces of the instrumental in Gothic either.



Roy776 said:


> That's exactly what I meant. Remember, although they are used like nouns, they are still verbs and could take a perfective or an imperfective aspect. So I think it's not completely off to say that this could have been the distinction between singular and plural. But it's only speculation. I've got nothing to prove this theory.


I'm a bit confused here.  Germanic verbs didn't have aspect as far as I know, just a simple present and past.  Also, we're talking about the infinitives, which were marked for case, not aspect... unless you're saying that the singular form of the inflected infinitive was used for the perfective aspect and the plural for the imperfective.  That's an interesting idea, but I don't know how we could get evidence for this.  There was at least one attestation of the dative plural in OHG.  If that sentence can be found, perhaps we could take a look at it and see what function it has.


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## Roy776

Yondlivend said:


> So that's the sentence!  Very interesting.  This might have been common usage at one time...
> 
> I followed your link, and that wasn't what it said.  The first line in that article is:
> 
> I looked up your exact sentence, and I was led to a section of the article "Latin Grammar" about the *Locative Case *(its under the nouns section, just scroll down a bit):
> 
> I'm a bit confused here.  Germanic verbs didn't have aspect as far as I know, just a simple present and past.  Also, we're talking about the infinitives, which were marked for case, not aspect... unless you're saying that the singular form of the inflected infinitive was used for the perfective aspect and the plural for the imperfective.  That's an interesting idea, but I don't know how we could get evidence for this.  There was at least one attestation of the dative plural in OHG.  If that sentence can be found, perhaps we could take a look at it and see what function it has.



1) Sorry, the link wasn't supposed to be there. The link there had a text about the general instrumental case. Here's the text where I got my information about the OHG instrumental from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_German_declension
2) Yes, I'm talking about the singular taking the perfective aspect and the plural taking the imperfective one. And as far as I know, the ge- prefix that we nowadays use to form the past participle were a perfective prefix back in the days of OHG, but I would need to review what I know about it.
Do you, by any chance, know the word that the dative plural was attested with?


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## LilianaB

Apparently there was a passive inflected infinitive in Gothic that was to be found in the Accusative. I would have to look for some examples. There must have been some examples, but I don't remember them right now. Gothic past and present participles were inflected as well, just like the adjectives.  The infinitive behaved like a gerund.


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> Do you, by any chance, know the word that the dative plural was attested with?


Yes.  I mentioned it in the first post: _halsennum_.


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## Roy776

Pretty scarce amount of hits, if you ask me. I don't know. Not all Old High German texts have been digitally transcribed. And if it's only been attested once, then I would assume that that's the case with the text we need.
But - of course, that's not guaranteed, but anyway - German could have gotten it from somewhere. Is there no possibility that another Germanic language has such inflections, so that we could compare? Gothic doesn't seem to have them.


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> But - of course, that's not guaranteed, but anyway - German could have gotten it from somewhere. Is there no possibility that another Germanic language has such inflections, so that we could compare? Gothic doesn't seem to have them.


By "such inflections" do you mean plural forms?  Old English only retained the nominative/accusative and dative singular.  Old Saxon had a dative and genitive, but I don't know if it used the plural forms.  The fourth link in the first post has this to say:


> In Old Saxon the morphology of the infinitive is the same as in Old High German: nom. _beran_, gen. _berannias_, dat. _to berenn(i)a_.  It is necessary to note that the genitive case is rarely used; but the examples with the dative case (with phonological variants _-ann(i)a, -anne, -(i)enne, onn(i)a, -onne_) are rather frequent (Holthausen 1900: 144).


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## Roy776

I mean any kind of nominal inflection of verbs, but, of course, especially the plural forms are of interest now. Unfortunately, I can't even find the verb halsen in my dictionary, and it doesn't sound like any current High German verb so I that's not helping us either. I don't know if the meaning could have helped us in any way, but it would still be worth a shot.


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## Yondlivend

Roy776 said:


> I mean any kind of nominal inflection of verbs, but, of course, especially the plural forms are of interest now. Unfortunately, I can't even find the verb halsen in my dictionary, and it doesn't sound like any current High German verb so I that's not helping us either. I don't know if the meaning could have helped us in any way, but it would still be worth a shot.


The only thing it sounded like to me was the English verb "halse" (which is dialectal or just plain old fashioned) meaning "to embrace, hug" or "to greet, salute, hail."  In wiktionary (Etymology 3; yes, I know it's not the most reliable source) it says "Cognate with Middle High German _heilsen_ ("to predict")."  That looks somewhat similar, but it's not necessarily the same one.


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## Roy776

No, it will most probably not be heilsen. Though it could be, depending on the dialect. Old High German was not just one language but several dialects. Maybe the ei was an a in some dialect of OHG. But still, even if it were, I see no sense in the plural.


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## LilianaB

The forms from "beran" look very similar to contemporary Slavic forms of verbal nouns, especially in Polish. To bear _nosic_, Gen. _noszenia_, Dat. _noszeniu_. I think they just may as well come from the PIE.


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## Roy776

Yeah, but PIE is reconstructed. Can we really rely on it?


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## Yondlivend

Well, it said _Middle_ High German, but I suppose that was still a stretch.

Didn't infinitives end in _-an_ in Old High German, though?  I would expect _halsan_ rather than _h__alsen_ as the nomanitive/accusative singular infinitive.  Compare OE beran and berenne (from i-mutation.  There was a /j/ after the n, which also caused Gemination).  

My second link says the following:


> Ein Gen., Dat. und Instr. des Inf. (,Gerundium’) wird nach der _i__̯a-_Deklination gebildet: _nemannes _(< *_nemani__̯es_), _nemanne _(< *_neman__i__̯e_), _zellennes _(< *_tal__i__̯ani__̯es_), _salbōnnes, habēnnes, -e; _Instr. nur _mit ferrennu_ T, _za opfrōno_ K (?).


The "i" after the "n" should have a little mark under it, but it didn't copy properly.  What I find interesting is that in some cases such as with _neman_, the vowel is not changed by the following /j/, while in others you can see i-mutation (_zellennes _from _tal__i__̯ani__̯es_, where both "a"s were changed to "e"s).


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## Roy776

I also couldn't find it as halsan. Strange... But, yes, MHG is a lot more like HG than OHG, so we can't really compare Old Saxon words with MHG words with high accuracy. But you're right about the verb ending. I've only learned MHG, not OHG, and the verb endings are already regular there. Well, the only other language that closely related to OHG would be Old Dutch, but I don't know a single thing about that language, so I don't know wether it had such nominal inflections. Wikipedia also doesn't offer any information on that.


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## berndf

Yondlivend said:


> Didn't infinitives end in _-an_ in Old High German, though?


OHG infinitive-endings were -an, -en or -on. I vaguely remember _halsen_ as variant of _helsen =_ _to  embrace_.


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## Roy776

berndf said:


> OHG infinitive-endings were -an, -en or -on. I vaguely remember _halsen_ as variant of _helsen =_ _to  embrace_.



You're right!
Helsen = erfassen, umarmen, umfassen, umhalsen, umschlingen
Halsôn = umarmen, umfassen, umhalsen

That's all I could find in my dictionary. But that still does, sadly, not explain or lead to the explanation of halsennum.


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## Yondlivend

Hmm.. I was looking in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon dictionary for the verb that "halse" is said to be derived from (since wiki doesn't have a page on it).  As I was looking, I found "*hǣlsian*" meaning "to foretell," which is more likely the word that is a cognate with "heilsen."  "Halse" as in "to greet; salute; hail" or "to beseech; adjure" (definitions from wiktionary) come from OE "*hālsian*" or "*heālsian*."  For this word, Bosworth-Toller gives the OHG cognate as "*heilison*."

EDIT: We posted at the same time, so I didn't see what you had put up.  If that's the OHG cognate, then I'm not sure what *heilison*​ is...


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## Roy776

It'll most probably be "to hail, to greet, to salute". It at least looks like heilsen.


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## Yondlivend

I tried searching for "halsannum" in a google search and found this in the description of the book _Deutsche Grammatik_ (authors Jacob Grimm, Gustav Roethe, Edward Schröder - 1898)


> [nb. dat. pl. *halsannum*, trophizannum, wanchônnum ad 2, 318.]


When I tried searching through the book though I couldn't find anything.  What does nb. mean?


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## Roy776

I only know nb. as meaning "neben" (beside), but is that really meant here?
The German in that book hurts my eyes. F written as S, few capital letters. It's been written a little more than a century ago, but it looks so different. 



> Alfo, es gibt im goth. und nord. fo wenig eine flexion des  inf., als im gr. und lat. [daher die goth. und nord. fprache den  infinitiv nicht fubftantivifch faffen (unten 259)], und ich bereue  1, 1020 von einer declination und noch oben f. 60 vom dat. des  inf. gefprochen zu haben, [doch ift die fubftantivierung und  neutralität der infinitive im ahd. mhd. nhd. (3, 537. 538) zu  erwägen.] "Wie könnte auch die ahd. form, -amies, -anna gen.  und dat. des inf. auf an fein? woher nemlich NN? diefe ahd.  gemination, wie wir wiffen, tritt fehr oft an die ftelle von NI,  folglich ftehen annes, anna für anies, ania (gleichwie chunni,  chunnes f. goth. kuni, kunjis), was durch die volleren altweftph.  formen der effener beichte liagannias, fueriannias (ahd. liogannes,  fuerrannes) beftätigt wird [GDS. 651. 487]. aus dem inf. an  ließe das I des gen. und dat. fich nicht begreifen, [nb. dat. pl.  halfannum, trophizannum, wanchonnum ad 2, 318.]



Well, that isn't really easy to read, even for a native speaker, if you ask me... 
Maybe you're better than me at reading this, berndf, and could shed some light on this text? I can't really make out if there is important information in there or not.



> Also, es gibt im Goth. und Nord. so wenig eine Flexion des Inf., als im Gr. und Lat. [daher die goth. und nord. Sprache den Infinitiv nicht Substantivisch *faffen* (unten 259)], und ich bereue  1, 1020 von einer Deklination und noch oben S. 60 vom Dat. des Inf. gesprochen zu haben,  [doch ist die Substantivierung und Neutralität der Infinitive im Ahd. Mhd. Nhd. (3, 537. 538) zu  erwägen.] "Wie könnte auch die ahd. Form,  -amies, -anna Gen.  und Dat. des Inf. auf an sein? Woher nämlich NN? Diese ahd. Gemination, wie wir wissen, tritt sehr oft an die Stelle von  NI,  folglich stehen annes, anna für anies, ania (gleichwie chunni,   chunnes f. goth. kuni, kunjis), was durch die volleren *altwestph. (altwestfälisch?)* Formen der essener Beichte liagannias, fueriannias (ahd. liogannes,   fuerrannes) bestätigt wird [GDS. 651. 487]. aus dem Inf. an  ließe das I  des Gen. und Dat. sich nicht begreifen, [nb. dat. pl.  halfannum,  trophizannum, wanchonnum ad 2, 318.]



That's my shot at an actualization of the orthography. I'm not sure about the words in bold, so they would need correction. It's a lot easier to read now, but it's still quite complicated. I'll try to read through the text tomorrow, because it seems like it could be useful for the thread.


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## berndf

"F written as S" is an OCR-error. Appears frequently on fonts with "long s". "faffen" means "fassen". Yes, "altwestph." means "altwestfälisch (-> _Essener Beichte_). I think "nb." simply means "nota bene" but I am not sure.

I am not sure whose opinion this is supposed to be. I tried to read a bit more of the text but the OCR is simply too bad. I would need the original text. But what I can say is that the "ich" (Grimm?) thinks that the inflected infinitive is not original in Germanic but probably a re-interpretation of earlier forms ("[doch ist die Substantivierung und Neutralität der Infinitive im Ahd. Mhd. Nhd. (3, 537. 538) zu erwägen.]"). He argues that the double "nn" is probably a mutation of earlier "ni". A mutation seen in other places. He also cites the Old Westphalian spelling the "Essener Beichte" which has preserved the "ni" ("liagannias" rather than OHG "liogannas", "fueriannias" rather than "fuerrannes").


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## LilianaB

It is present in Lithuanian, so it is probably from PIE.  Some of the Gerunds are inflected and some are are not. So if this infinitive is treated as a Gerund it may come from PIE.


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## eamp

"halsannum" seems to occur only as a gloss in the "Reichenauer Bibelglossar" (Rb) translating Latin "amplexibus", which is dat./abl. pl. of "amplexus" = "embrace". 
Since it doesn't even appear in a genuine German sentence and glosses a Latin noun what allows us to conclude it's an infinitive in any way? Just because it has the same ending in -nn- as one, doesn't mean it was actually felt to be an infinitive by speakers of Old High German, just like not all English words ending in -ing are gerunds. 
And as said, there doesn't seem to be a verb from which it could be regularly derived as an infinitive, from "halsôn" we would expect "*halsônnum" and from "helsen" "*helsennum".


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## berndf

eamp said:


> "halsannum" seems to occur only as a gloss in the "Reichenauer Bibelglossar" (Rb) translating Latin "amplexibus", which is dat./abl. pl. of "amplexus" = "embrace".


So you're saying the dative plural is just an imitation of the Latin ablative plural and is probably not a native word. I thought of something along these lines as well. It would be a bit dubious to reconstruct and entire grammatical category (=plural infinitives) from just two occurrences.


eamp said:


> Since it doesn't even appear in a genuine German sentence and glosses a Latin noun what allows us to conclude it's an infinitive in any way?


Because _-nnum_ would be the regular plural form of the normal (=singular) dative infinitive ending _-nne_.


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## bearded

Just a remark from a non-etymologist:

Concerning the (almost) non-attested plural infinitives, one thing is affirming that no traces can be found in the available sources, and another thing is saying that it's impossible to imagine the function or purpose of those plurals in case they had really existed.



Roy776 said:


> I can not even fathom the usage of such forms. What for would there be a need for the plurality of actions?





berndf said:


> I have no idea what a plural should mean



I mean, if we accept the following:


berndf said:


> The regular function of the infinitive is as a verbal noun. In English this function is obscured by the fact that the nominal derivation suffix _-ing_ became grammaticalized as a gerund-suffix. The original use of the infinitive was roughly like the gerund in modern English.


many nominalized modern English gerunds are quite common in the plural: e.g. _I was sincerely surprised by those reasonings /...von diesen Gedankengängen. _Or: _In this profile of mine I can modify the settings._
Besides, the German noun ending -_ung _often corresponds to the English gerund ending -_ing _(short(en)ing / Kürzung, ending/Endung), and all -ung nouns have a plural in German.

So why couldn't plural infinitives (if existing) have been used in the same way in Old Germanic?


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