Introduction 3

Chapter 1. Linguistic reference 5

1.1 Historical background 5

1.2 Infinitive in different languages 5

1.3 Translation of the infinitive to languages without an infinitive 7

Chapter 2. Infinitives in English 10

2.1 Definition of infinitive and its basic types 10

2.2 Uses of the bare infinitive 11

2.3 Uses of the full infinitive 12

2.4 Comparison of use of bare and full infinitive 14

2.5 The infinitive with auxiliary verbs 17

2.6 Split infinitive 17

2.6.1 History of the construction 18

2.6.2 Types 20

2.6.3 Principal objections to the split infinitive 22

Conclusion 28

Literature 29