Talk:Split infinitive/Archive 1

why it is generally not acceptable to 'split' an infinitive with 'not'
This article touches on an important point. Infinitives are not generally 'split' with the adverb 'not'. That is because somewhere along the line a different method of avoiding ambiguity was developed for that adverb. It is generally always applied to the conjugated verb gramatically. However, depending on the conjugated verb, almost as a part of the conjugated verb's definition, 'not' is interpreted as negating the infinitive in some cases, and the conjugated verb in others. A parallel set of rules applies to auxiliary verbs and compound past constructions. I have jumbled them all together.

of the following list, 'must' and 'have to' are the best example. Notice that "I must watch" and "I have to watch" have very similar meanings, while, "I must not watch" forbids me from watching, and "I do not have to watch" gives me the option of watching or not. This is because in the case of must, even 'not' conceptually applies to "watch" while with "have to", 'not' conceptually applies to 'have'.

This set of rules seems to be why you do not need to split infinitives with 'not' to avoid ambiguity. It is done for you as part of the definition of the 'helper' verb.

I don't know if you guys already noticed this. It is not exactly on topic for this article. And I have no sources since I noticed myself. But I thought you guys might be interested if I pointed this concept out.

examples cases where 'not' negates conjugated verb or auxiliary verb is not allowed to can not have not do not have to

cases where 'not' negates infinitive is not supposed to must not should not

cases where the two interpretations amount to the same thing will not does not

falsity
I was told that the following information is false [see below]. A person who has R Lowth's, "A Short Introduction to English Grammar" tells me that nowhere in that book does R Lowth condemn the use of split infinitives.

Terry 202.221.168.253 04:12, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * The earliest prohibition of the usage was in 1762, when Robert Lowth argued that because a split infinitive was not permissible in Latin, it should not be permissible in English. (It is worth noting that it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin, since the Latin infinitive is a single word.)

The assertion that it's impossible to split a Latin infinitive, which is still in the article, is false. Yes, the present infinitive and perfect infinitives of most Latin verbs consist of one word, but future infinitives routinely are two words (e.g. for the usual "model" verb amo, amare the future infinitive is amaturus esse; the future imperative of "to be" would be futurus esse. - Nunh-huh 00:23, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Point taken. However, those supporting the ban on splitting have never to my knowledge had recourse to this distinction. English has no such thing as a 'future infinitive', so any arguments based on what rules apply to such a construction in Latin or any other language have no place in considering what rules should apply in English. They certainly have no relevance to the present infinitive in English, which is what we refer to when we talk about splitting an infinitive. Lowth's condemnation based on Latin grammar is waffle, and we should not any longer be honouring it but calling a spade a spade. JackofOz 00:56, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just want to be accurate. The argument in favor of split infinitives is not enhanced by falsely asserting all Latin infinitives are one word, and we should not assert that Lowth's book states something if it doesn't. It would be interesting to learn what Lowth's argument really was: his book needs to be looked at, as it's impossible at this point to determine what (if anything) he actually argued based on the paraphrases on the Internet. -- Nunh-huh 03:26, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Just because it is possible to split a Latin future or perfect passive imperative doesn't mean that it was permissable. Does somebody have a quotation from a Latin author (prose, preferably) to show that it was, in fact, done? (Also, to get Dr. Lowth off the hook somewhat, please see the point I've just added to the article: you can look at "amaturus esse" as a participle + infinitive, in which case the infinitive proper isn't splittable.) Doops 17:20, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * To get Dr. Lowth totally off the hook, can anyone confirm or deny that he banned the split infinitive? The following is from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage: "Although Lounsbury said he had seen the construction mentioned in a few late 18th-century reviews, he gave no particulars, and no one else has found a mention of the construction before 1840 or 1850.  The first of our commentators to mention it is Alford 1866, who was shocked to discover that such a construction existed."  (Quoted by Evan Kirshenbaum on alt.usage.english, .)


 * In the same thread, Burchfield's edition of Modern English Usage is quoted by David C. Wood: "The first major grammarian to oppose the use of split infinitives was Henry Alford in his usage manual called _The Queen's English_ (1864)." Given that, I think that unless someone can provide a cite for Lowth's banning or even mentioning the split infinitive, he should be removed from the article.


 * Next on the agenda: David Wood adds, 'It is interesting to note that Alford's objection is "descripivist"; that "there seems no good reason for flying in the face of common usage."' So does anyone have a cite from a grammarian who objected to split infinitives because of a comparison with Latin?  If not, the whole question of "amaturus esse" is irrelevant to this article.  &mdash;JerryFriedman 21:46, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Problems
I'm new here, and this article has quite a bit of information and is quite good. However, it does seem to have some problems. Becuase of my newness, I wanted to post my thoughts here before editing the article. Please note, I am neither for nor against split infinitives and I probably use them in my everyday life and don't even notice.


 * POV issues - The article seems to be clearly written from the POV that split infinitives are alright and that trying to avoid them may cause problems. This is especially noteable with the section called "Problems caused by trying to avoid splitting infinitives". Some of the examples of "problems" are not problems and some of the actual problems can be avoided with better word choice.
 * Example 1: "He failed to completely understand the book" can be written "He failed to understand the book completely" and contrary to the content of the article it would not be ambiguous. In general a modifier adverb will modify the nearest verb (or adjective). Complete failure would be written "He completely failed to understand the book" or "He failed to understand the book, completely" or "He failed in his attempt to understand the book competely". See / http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/modifiers.htm for more information.
 * Example 2: "I'm going to do better next year." vs. "I'm going to really do better next year." This emphasis is misplaced because it can/should be written as "I'm going to do significanly better next year" or "I'm going to do much better next year". The adverb should be modifying "better" not "to do". Having a split infinitive is actually more ambiguous because "to really do better" indicates that the person is 'actually' going to do better as opposed to doing much better.
 * Also, "problems" with split infinitive can be avoided by simply doing away with the infinitive. This should be noted in the article.
 * The assertion that: "Perhaps the worst problem caused by the belief that infinitives should not be split, however, is that it leads to a wholly groundless avoidance of splitting in other compound verb forms." is pretty groundless. That's a great deal like saying that "Perhaps the worst problem caused by avoiding danlging participles is that it leads to a wholly groundless avoidence of participle phrases". Clearly if a person avoids a perfectly acceptable compound verb forms in an attempt to avoid split infinitives (when an infinitive is not even being used) the problem doesn't lie with the infinitive.
 * Finally, the entire second paragraph of the section "Current views" should be removed as it is a discussion of some of the problems of avoiding split infinitives which has a complete section immediately following.

Kevin Rector 21:23, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Have I addressed most of your objections? [As far as #2 is concerned, it's one thing to say "I'll truly do better next year" another to say "I'll do much better next year" and yet a third thing to say I'M GOING, COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, TO DO BETTER NEXT YEAR. This, presumably, is what's meant by "I'm going to really do better next year."] Doops 17:13, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm find it difficult to see how it's necessarily a POV to debunk a completely rubbish theory - lots of people think that glass flows, but since there's no rational basis for believing that, there's no question of 'bias' in explaining why things are otherwise. Similarly an encyclopedia which states that the Earth is several billion years old may be taking sides in what is literally a controversy (in that a sizeable number of religious people believe otherwise), but it is also stating a fact rather than a mere point of view.  So long as no-one has produced a single coherent rationale for why split infinitives should be considered to be 'ungrammatical' and they are in fact used in everyday speech and writing, it would be absurd for any reference tool to pretend that a split infinitive might somehow not be a permissible grammatical construction.      -danno


 * I think it's misleading to even claim that don't split infinitives is a "theory" that can be "debunked" or supported with "rationales". Look at the form of don't split infintives; it's a command, not a statement of fact which can be right or wrong.  What we can make factual claims about is what people actually say and do; and that also includes what prescriptive grammarians do and claim.  NPOV implies sticking to the facts, which means only doing description, not prescription; but at the same time, the actions of prescriptivists are amoung the facts to be described (and they're probably what a lot of the readers coming to the article might be intersted in).  In its current state, the article clearly does not take the POV that "splitting infintives is alright"; to me it seems to actually lean too far in the direction of claiming there might me some sense in which it's not "alright" (see my comment in the prescription/description section below).  However, this is probably OK; since many readers probably come to the article with prescriptivist presuppositions, an article biased a bit in that direction will seem neutral to them.  They'll therefore take it seriously enough to maybe follow the links on descriptive linguistics and get deprogrammed a little. NathanV 12:59, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that's a sensible note of caution. But my answer would be that whichever way a grammatical rule can be formed - whether it's a simply case of most speakers/writers tending towards a certain pattern and refusing to accept deviations, or whether notions of logic and consistency affect language rules - there must come a point when a theory about a rule of langauage can be debunked.  And surely the clearest example of a theory about language being 'wrong' is when you can trace back to when a small number of grammarians prescribed the supposed rule out of thin air.  Because rules of grammar don't work like that - you can't ever correctly claim that something is a rule of English if it's completely at odds with existing practice.  Further, I would suggest that even someone with extraordinary "prescriptivist presuppositions" would surely see that.  Or rather, if you explained to anyone that a couple of grammarians made up the rule in C19th, they would be bound to think much less of it.
 * As for the possible argument that what might have once been a spurious rule has now been adopted and so has now become genuine, it would need to be established that people in their speech or written English were in fact adopting a rule against split infinitives. The fact that lots of people believe there is such a rule would not, on any theory of language, mean that the rule exists, if they don't actually adopt it. --Danward 02:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The "He failed to completely understand the book" example is not a very good one; "He failed to understand the book completely" is not at all ambiguous; it can only mean that the subject's understanding was incomplete - when the adverb occurs at the end of the sentence it really isn't possible to consider it as a modifier of the word "failed" alone unless the sentence is spoken out loud with unnaturally strong emphasis being placed on the word "completely". In contrast, "I plan to really enjoy the party" is quite a good example. Additionally part of "counterarguments" seems to duplicate "Problems" with each objecting to the various possible placements of an adverb in turn. Does anyone mind if I replace the paragraph beginning "Stylistically..." with something shorter stating that stylistic objections exist, referring to the problems section below and use the "really enjoy" example for the later "Problems" section? --131.111.8.99 17:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The "He failed to completely understand the book" example is not a very good one; "He failed to understand the book completely" is not at all ambiguous; it can only mean that the subject's understanding was incomplete - when the adverb occurs at the end of the sentence it really isn't possible to consider it as a modifier of the word "failed" alone unless the sentence is spoken out loud with unnaturally strong emphasis being placed on the word "completely
 * (a) Not true; both interpretations for "failed to understand .... completely" are available with broad focus intonation
 * (b) Regardless of the effect of intonation, intonation is not available in written language, so the problem remains in that situation. NathanV 14:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Although a possible interpretation of this sentence is that the subject's failure to understand was complete rather than that his understanding was incomplete it is by no means the natural one; such a rendering, although not impossible, would always be pedantic and falls into the "awkward" category used elsewhere to describe the placement of adverbials. Anyway, even we can't agree about this, I think my changes were still an improvement - the example in counterarguments was duplicating what was said in problems - a listing of the possible placements of an adverb with all but one being labelled awkward, ambiguous or different in meaning. Neither example demonstrated something that the other did not. Lo2u 15:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Prescription vs. description
I see one major problem with this article, it spends about one sentence describing what a split infinitive is and how it's used, and then the whole article is about this debate over whether or not split infinitives are "correct." See Prescription and description. Ultimately, this whole article is written from a prescriptive standpoint and ignores the descriptive perspective.

As a matter of fact, from a descriptive linguistic perspective split infinitives are not particularly difficult to deal with, and they are certainly a common feature in virtually every dialect of spoken English. 68.163.13.242 03:36, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree; I added a link to the Prescription and description article. I tried to change the wording a little to avoid the presupposition that the prescriptivists are arguing about an actually substantive issue, when in fact they're just indulging in hissy fits over looney nonsense, as usual.  But in making these changes, we must be careful to preserve the neutral POV; especially since many people might come to the article with prescriptivist presuppositions, it would be counterproductive to offend them by giving prescriptivism the deserved dumping-upon.  Anyway, hope my changes stick. NathanV 11:10, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

biased "non split" POV
I noticed that all the infinitives are left unsplit in this article. I therefore have added three split infinitives to this article. Otherwise, it would implicitly hold a biased POV towards their prohibition. User:MPS 132.159.147.77 18:04, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * NPOV has finally gone insane when we ascribe a POV to an article on grammar. - Penta 05:02, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Have don't please no objection POV's to grammar mine. ^^

Brit-snickering
"During certain treaty negotiations with the United States, the British government went so far as to issue instructions to its representatives allowing them to make concessions on fishing rights and reparations, but forbidding them to accept a treaty in which an adverb separated to from an infinitive." Since the only purpose in this bogus information-free statement (what instructions for which treaty? for a starter) is to show what fools the Brits are, I've removed it here. Wetman 06:45, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have to say that, although you're certainly right to look askance at the anecdote's sketchiness, I don't agree that it's nothing more than "Brit-snickering": if the story is true, it doesn't have to be interpreted as evidence of the Brits' foolishness, but rather could be taken as evidence of how seriously the injunction against split infinitives was taken at one time &mdash; and hence as a worthwhile supporting detail in the article. (If it is true.) Doops 07:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Speaking as a true-born Brit, I am readily persuaded of our government's folly and pomposity, and I'd be more than happy for the reference to stand - not least for the reasons Doops gives. But, as we all agree, it's no good unless it can be documented - and now that Wetman mentions it, it does have the ring of an urban myth.  seglea 21:48, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like rubbish to me. Apart from the fact it's no more frowned upon in Britain than the US, it just sounds made up or exaggerated. Maybe it derives from the fact that the civil service presumably has a style book, like newspapers and similar organisations. But that's hardly unusual. garik 23:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Really?
Can't we come up with examples that use an adverb other than "really," which (like its sister, "very") is often weak and superfluous? Really! &mdash;Steven G. Johnson 20:31, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Bishop Lowth
I'm the guy who told Jerry that Bishop Lowth didn't write about split infinitives. I figure I should follow up to confirm what Jerry wrote. Split infinitives simply weren't an issue in Lowth's time. The construction had been used in earlier centuries but it went out of fashion and in Lowth's day it was very rare. The issue simply wasn't on the radar screen.

The construction resurfaced in the late 18th century and over the course of the 19th century became relatively common. Dean Alford's book _The Queen's English_ has the earliest discussion I am personally aware of. It would not surprise me if someone were to find an earlier citation.

My guess is that Lowth gets the blame for this because it is confused with ending a sentence with a preposition: Lowth did advise against that, though he said that it is inelegant, not that it is wrong;  and while the construction is often associated with Lowth, Dryden has the prior claim. In the early 20th century Henry Fowler characterized the rules against split infinitives and terminal prepositions as "superstitions". I suspect that Fowler grouping them together explains why they are sometimes conflated, with Lowth getting blamed for both.

My source for this discussion is that I have read Lowth's book, though I do not own a copy. I do own of copy of Alford's book.

As for Jerry's other point, it is my experience as well that Latin infinitives were not actually used to justify the rule. 19th century usage manuals rarely discussed their judgments on that level. The rule is simply stated. Come to think of it, most 20th century manuals do the same thing. I have only seen the Latin discussion in the context of explaining the rule ex post facto in order to reject it.

Richard Hershberger


 * Thank you, Richard! You're only one of the people who told me that, but I appreciate your contribution here.  &mdash;JerryFriedman 21:52, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Okay, Lowth is out of there. (I also did some tweaks and put in Shakespeare et al.; my source was the a.u.e. FAQ already mentioned in the article.)  Please, everyone, in view what what Richard and I and other people have written above, don't put Lowth back in unless you have an actual citation or some equally good reason.  And please don't say that the argument from Latin (or any other language) was used unless you can cite from someone who used it.  I think those are requests that I'm able to reasonably make, and I hope very much that we'll end up with an article without any "academic legends" in it.  &mdash;JerryFriedman 22:42, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Split infinitives in other languages?
Is there some information on split infinitives in other languages? -- Sundar 06:24, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)


 * There was some brief info on German and Dutch, I saw, which makes sense, since they are English' two largest, closest language relatives.


 * Should it still be of interest: History has something on that subject: Neither its German cognate zu, nor its Dutch cognate te is considered part of the infinitive in their respective languages, although many sentences use them the same way as English uses to. True, but you can't wedge something between zu and its infinitive. It might be conceivable as intentional anacoluthon and would seem quite awkward.


 * That said, the Duden, prescriptive authority of sorts, cites this examples for the use of zu: Die Fähigkeit zu hören: "the ability to hear" and Die Fähigkeit zuzuhören: "the ability to listen" {to someone}, without going into details. I don't know how this qualifies ...and now, neither do you. One funny kraut, curious himself: --tickle me 12:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * No, it doesn't qualify. Zuzuhören is of the same structure as anzuhören - particle + zu + infinitive. A split infinitive would be something like *ich versuche, ihm zu immer helfen (instead of ich versuche, ihm immer zu helfen), which doesn't sound right (compare the following on Hebrew). --Shlomital 00:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Neither in Hebrew nor in Arabic have the grammarians prescribed against splitting the infinitive. This is because:


 * In Hebrew the infinitive (I mean the to-infinitive, the infinitive with ל, which is the one in common use in modern Hebrew, used much like the English to-infinitive) is a single word, welded tightly shut and totally impervious to dismantling. Any attempt to wedge something in the middle of the infinitive would be like saying "I'm bealwayshind you" in English. The grammarians don't need to proscribe it, because the speakers do it themselves.


 * In Arabic there is no infinitive... (humour aside, my point is that the Arabic masdar is a verbal noun, not an infinitive. A lot of newbie Arabists get that wrong.) --Shlomital 00:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for references
Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 20:00, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Looking more closely through this now, I see there are a number of citations that are written into the prose. If no one gets a chance to collect them into a references section, or maybe better is to add invisible notes, then please remind me and I will do it. - Taxman Talk 17:23, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Current views
The 'current views' section of this article has somehow become gratuitously offensive, partisan and, more to the point, off-topic. I tried to edit it, but the version of the text I see in the edit box is not the same as the text in the article. Can anyone explain this? I'm a fairly new user.


 * It is possible that the "edit" button you clicked is that of a previous or preceding heading rather than that of the one you want (I know I get confused sometimes). Another potential possibility is that you were actually editing an older version of the article.  If there is some sort of difficulty, i suggest rather than editing an individual section, you could try editing the whole article.  Slac  speak up!  21:24, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Contradictory introduction
The introduction seems a little contradictory, and also out of kilter with the page on the infinitive. The introduction seems undecided as to whether the an infinitive is just the verb alone, or the combination of to and the verb. Here is the text that indicates an infinitive is just the verb:

"inserting a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, between to and a verb in its infinitive form."

From this we infer that in the phrase to go it is go which is the verb in its infinitive form. Hence an infinitive is just the verb.

But immediately after that is the suggestion that an infinitive is to plus the verb:

"Here, the infinitive verb form of go is to go"

From reading elsewhere, and referring to the Wikipedia infinitive page, I think the former is correct: the infinitive is the verb alone. Thus I think the introduction needs to be corrected. Here is a suggestion:

"[...] One famous example is from the television series Star Trek: 'to boldly go where no man has gone before.' Here, infinitive verb form of go has been split apart from the preceding to, and the adverb boldly has been inserted, creating a split infinitive. Note that while the entire construction to boldly go is called a 'split infinitive', the infinitive itself is just the verb go. [...]"

Opinions welcome.


 * Niksilver 17:53, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that most of the terminology comes from traditional Latin grammar and does not always carry over easily to English. In English, the form "be" is often said to be the base form of the verb, and "to be" is called the infinitive. The term "split infinitive" then refers to a situation where the two parts of the infinitive, the marker to and the base form of the verb, are separated by one or more words. The alternative is to refer to "be" as the infinitive, and to call "to be" the infinitive+to, or something along those lines. For the sake of consistency, it would make sense to pick one terminological convention without endorsing it as The Truth. --MarkSweep 07:03, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree about consistency - which really was the point of my comment above. The first paragraph is inconsistent and needs to be clarified one way or the other. It may be worth adding something along the lines of what you've said: that it's disputed as what an infinitive actually is. However, I'm loathe to change this myself as this is such a controversial subject!


 * Niksilver 19:16, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I've rephrased the entire article for consistency (both internally and with our article on the infinitive). That meant distinguishing bare infinitives (e.g. "be") from to-infinitives ("to be"). I've replaced some occurrences of "infinitive" with "verb" when I thoght that this wouldn't lead to confusion. I don't think anyone will dispute that there are two distinct phenomena ("be" vs. "to be") that should be distinguished somehow. --MarkSweep 21:08, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

"Final word"?

 * Final word
 * Remember to never split an infinitive.

Is this really appropriate? Mga 23:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
 * For the talk page? Hell, yes. (But not for the article, of course.) Doops | talk 23:33, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

argument from classical languages
I've changed the part about the argument from Latin. The rebuttal which refers to "certain rarer Latin infinitives" seems misplaced, for two reasons: first, it gives examples of compound infinitives Latin, but not truly split infinitives; and second, even in English the rule against split infinitives has never been applied to the English counterparts (e.g., the perfect "to have gone" splits "to go"). I also changed "the argument from Latin" to "the argument from Classical Languages," and included an example from Ancient Greek.


 * I think you missed the point of the perfect tense example: In Latin there is no prohibition against putting an adverb in the middle of amaturus esse; in English, the people opposed to splitting infinitives are indeed opposed to to have devotedly loved. (Not that, awkward as it is, anybody's in favor of it, mind you...) Doops | talk 19:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


 * No one in his right mind considers "to have devotedly loved" a split infinitive. See the link to the American Heritage Book of English Usage in the article.  (I admit that not everybody is in his or their right mind.)  &mdash;JerryFriedman 20:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Dating contradiction
This article says that the campaign against split infinitives started in the 19th century. Then it goes on to say that it goes back to renaissance grammarians. This is a contradiction and needs to be clarified. --Doric Loon 13:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I have to not not say something
in the second paragraph, the meaning of "to boldy go" is not given. the diff between "to go boldly" and "boldy to go" is there, but that's it. I'll jump in and give it a crack. thought I'd put it out there first tho. "to not do (something)" is one of my fave examples where infintiv has such a markedly different meaning than any other option. later. [http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/CoolHeadz/HomePage CoolHeadz. a place for any linguistic content WikiPedia refuses.] skizzno logic3.1 08:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd rather you not edit anything.--Suspected 10:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Possible copyvio
I have added an example from Trisk's Mind The Gaffe, I don't know if it counts as copyvio (i have referenced it at the end). If anyone wants to make up a new example but keep the point, that might be good. Damiancorrigan 10:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)