I'll bit, although I don't have as much detail on the development of the to-infinitive as I'd like. The basic OE infinitive was marked by the suffix -an, not by "to". The use of "to" actually started out with a directional sense, as in the OE Lord's Prayer for "Thy kingdom come": to becume þin rice. Here "to" doesn't mark an infinitive at all, since "becume" doesn't have the -an suffix. By the time "to" started regularly marking infinitives, in late Middle and Early Modern English, the infinitive suffix was lost almost completely so that the syntactic option became attractive. Not surprisingly, a preposition was coopted to mark this deverbal noun. But long before this, the preterite presents that our modern modals arose from had long since become modals and behaved as a separate category from verbs, one not requiring any marking on the following verb. This, however, doesn't account for other bare infinitives, like after perception verbs (I saw them walk down the aisle) or in some anomalous pairs like let/allow or make/force:
We let them go.
We allowed them to go.
We made them go.
We forced them to go.
These I don't know the history of. The OED lists a LME-EModE use of "let", meaning to forbear or omit to do something, and all of those examples, 14th c. through 17th, occur with the to-infinitive. In Modern English the "to" seems to occur only in the passive, as in, "They were let to run wild." I think the nearly complete absence of "to" after "let" is fairly recent, probably since Early Modern English.
Herb
Lauren,
There's a terminological issue that might be causing some interference
here, or at least might lead to claims that look conflicting but aren't.
Many of us use the term "infinitive" for a particular form of a verb
whether or not there's a "to" in front of it. Thus, "be" in "could be"
is an infinitive, even though there's no "to." The to-less form is just
called the "bare infinitive."
In practice, of course, the bare infinitive looks exactly like the
present tense for most verbs, with the very important exception that it
doesn't take the -s for subject/verb agreement -- so, "he runs" and "he
can run," but not "he can runs" or "he cans run."
Your point about "be able" requiring a "to" after it is still, of
course, quite valid. Herb can doubtless address this issue much better
than I, but my sense is that the bare infinitive is tied to
longer-standing constructions while more-recently developing
constructions that are starting to *act* like modals, like "going to,"
"be able to," or "fixing to," use the...er...."to-ful" form. I have to
admit, I can't think of another label. "Clad infinitive"?
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 2:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: modals and tense
Hello, all--
I think that the "can" / "be able" debate stems not from the issue of
modals, but rather, whether a verb requires a subsequent infinitive to
be complete. Take, for instance, this example, which I extract from a
paper written in my introductory composition class:
When I realized I wasn't as talented as the rest of my choir, I
stopped to sing.
Clearly, in this case, "stopped to" has been substituted for its
equivalent in meaning, "ceased to." Thus it's evident that certain
terms of similar meaning require different syntax.
The same applies to "can" versus "be able." "Can" does not need to be
followed by an infinitive; "be able" does.
Am I simply restating the obvious? Perhaps I'm missing something.
Regards,
Lauren
Quoting "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Bob,
>
> I said what I did about "do" because some syntacticians have use the
> facts of its synchronic behavior to argue that it is a modal. You
have
> the good sense not to be one of them.
>
> Herb
>
>
>
> Herb,
>
> You know much more about the history of the language than I do.
>
> However, I have no idea why you say the following:
>
>>>> "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> 11/03/07 10:41 PM >>>
> For one thing, it means calling "do" a modal, which makes no semantic
or
> morphological
> sense, since "do" can take both tense suffixes and does not
participate
> in the deontic/epistemic contrast true of all other modals.
>
> ******
> Unlike German, main verbs in modern English don't move for questions
and
> then there is obligatory-do support for negation when there is no
other
> helping verb.
>
> Why must one posit do as a modal to account for these facts? You know
> there is another account available.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
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