{"id":71761,"date":"2019-08-24T09:22:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-24T09:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=71761"},"modified":"2019-08-28T07:59:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T07:59:20","slug":"infinitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/infinitive\/","title":{"rendered":"Infinitive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Infinitives are forms like (to) write and (to) read. Infinitives are generally used with the marker to. Note that this to is not a preposition; after the preposition to we use \u2013ing forms.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I would like <strong>to meet<\/strong> the manager.<\/li>\n<li>Is there anything<strong> to eat?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The main thing is <strong>to stay<\/strong> calm.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Negative forms<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Negative Infinitives are normally formed by putting <strong>not<\/strong> before the infinitive.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I decided to invite them. (affirmative)<\/li>\n<li>I decided <strong>not to invite<\/strong> them. (negative )<\/li>\n<li>You were silly <strong>not to have locked<\/strong> the car. (NOT You were silly to not have locked the car.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Perfect infinitive<\/h3>\n<p>The perfect infinitive is the traditional label for the structure<strong> to + have + past participle of a verb.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the sentence <em>I would like to have met him<\/em>, the perfect infinitive is<em> to have met.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Perfect infinitives can have the same kind of meaning as perfect tenses or past tenses.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is nice<em> to have finished<\/em> work. (= It is nice that I have finished work.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We often use perfect infinitives to talk about unreal past events: things that did not happen, or that may not have happened.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I meant<em> to have telephoned<\/em>, but I forgot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Split infinitive<\/h3>\n<p>The structure in which an adverb comes between <strong>to<\/strong> and the infinitive verb form.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the sentence<strong><em> She decided to never touch another cigarette.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here the sequence <strong><em>to never touch<\/em><\/strong> is an example of what is called <em>a split infinitive.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Another example is given below.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I wish <strong><em>to really understand<\/em><\/strong> his motive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some people think that it is wrong to split an infinitive like this. But this view is wrong: the infinitive is a single word; the particle <strong>to<\/strong> is not part of the infinitive or part of the verb at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Infinitives are forms like (to) write and (to) read. Infinitives are generally used with the marker to. Note that this to is not a preposition; after the preposition to we use \u2013ing forms. I&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[852,853,891],"class_list":["post-71761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-infinitive","tag-infinitives","tag-perfect-infinitive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71825,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71761\/revisions\/71825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}