What is an infinitive, infinitive phrase and how to spot an infinitive and infinitive phrase in a sentence, this is what I'm gonna discuss in the post today.
An infinitive is a verb in its base form, “to _____ “ , it is usually preceded by the word “to”. For example, to run, to eat, to sleep, to move etc.
Infinitives can be used as nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
How can we recognize them?
Simply figure out how an infinitive functions in a sentence. Let’s look at some examples.
Ali loves to sing.
Can you spot the infinitive? “to sing” is the infinitive and as it acts as a direct object here, then we know it is used as a “Noun”.
Let us look at another example of the infinitive,
To play, Afridi puts on his helmet.
“To play” is our infinitive but how it is functioning in the sentence?
It functions as an "adverb" which modifies the word “put”. If it does not makes sense to you, just think it over, "put" under what condition?
Puts to play!
Ex: Einstein was a person to admire.
“To admire” is our infinitive and it functions as an adjective modifying the noun “person”.
Infinitive Phrases
Now let us look at infinitive phrases.
An infinitive phrase is the combination of the infinitive and its object or any modifier. For example:
To see the football world cup, he leaves for Russia.
“To see” is off course our infinitive. What is the object of the infinitive?
To see what?
The football World Cup! That’s our object!
Therefore, “to see the football world cup” is our whole infinitive phrase. This one functioning as an "adverb" modifying the verb “leaves”.
Ex: Our school is a place to teach the students.
“To teach” is our infinitive. Now teach to whom?
Teach to the students!
Therefore, “teach to the students” is the infinitive phrase. And infinitive phrase functioning as an adjective as it is modifying the word “place”.
(Which place? The place to teach the students! Phrase qualifies the noun, isn’t it?)
Hi, my name is Asher Kabir. I'm the founder, writer and designer behind this blog. My passion is to help local students in science and to spread the knowledge of the Quran in term of science.
Ahhh, the English language 😆. So much of this I forget. There’s so many rules and rule of rules to remember in the English language.
ReplyDeleteThanks
DeleteWhat a great reminder of the structures of sentences and the various roles of the words. This is a good post for those who home school, or wish to keep their children educated during the summer months.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy these posts because it reminds you of what certain phrases and words are called. I have forgotten what infinitive and infinitive phrases are even though I know how to use them.
ReplyDeleteIt's like being back to school :)
ReplyDeleteThis is an additional information. We construct sentences and phrases a lot but I honestly dont know what they are called for sometimes. Thanks for helping us learn.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing about this. This something that we should keep in mind. Very timely since I sometimes get confused with these infinitive phrases.
ReplyDeleteNow I remembered we read this concept of infinitive phrases in our schools, then it all sounded so confusing but slowly we learnt it all.
ReplyDeleteFollowing you blog. Love these type of posts. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThat was a refreshing post. It refreshed my memory on the proper terms for the parts of literature that I read and write everyday. Being out of school for over 20yrs, some of the terms have faded from my memory. Thank you for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteSo nice to go over grammar like this. Even though we use infinitives every day, most people forget what they are!
ReplyDeleteThis was nice for me to refresh my English grammar. Haven't done it in a while!
ReplyDeleteThis is such an informative post for anyone learning to speak English or needing to brush up on their grammatical skills!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I feel like I am back at school all over again, but I guess your never to old to learn new things.
ReplyDeleteWill show this to my daughter who's in Level 4. You know, I write pretty good English, but I am not very technical with grammar. I get lost! hahaha
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