1

As the Latin language shows, infinitives can be marked for tense (amare - present, amavisse - perfect).

English also shows that: to love, to have loved.

Can anyone suggest any literature regarding the question of tensed infinitives across languages and how they can be formed?

It would also be great if you could provide examples of languages that have tensed infinitives.

14
  • 2
    The Latin infinitive is more accurately marked for aspect, rather than tense; the same is true of the Classical Greek infinitive. Off the top of my head, I’d venture that most languages that have both tenses/aspects and infinitives also have the ability to combine the two. At least that’s the case for all the ones I can think of. Commented Jul 4 at 22:33
  • 1
    @JanusBahsJacquet Though to be fair, Ancient Greek has an infinitive that's marked for aspect or for future tense as an odd exception.
    – Draconis
    Commented Jul 4 at 22:41
  • 3
    Also, the English example is specifically aspect rather than tense: you can combine the infinitive with all the auxiliaries you want (to have been being exploited) but not with tense (*to did, *to was).
    – Draconis
    Commented Jul 4 at 22:42
  • 2
    The English perfect is not a tense, it's relative time. It means that, relative to the tense, the event happened before. So it makes sense that it can be used in a tenseless phrase.
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Jul 4 at 23:12
  • 1
    also worth noting that English arguably doesn't have tensed infinitives because constructions like "to have loved", "to be going to love" etc are analytic constructions, whereas tense is generally required to be inflectional (additionally as @curiousdannii points out, even if we do want to consider them in the same terms as we would verbal inflection, these would be better understood as having retrospective and prospective aspect than past and future tense)
    – Tristan
    Commented Jul 5 at 8:20

0

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.