A Handbook of English Grammar
Reinard Willem Zandvoort
http://ja.scribd.com/doc/70494944/English-Handbook-Grammar#scribd
CHAPTER ONE
INFINITIVE
PLAIN INFINITIVE
13. The infinitive may occur either with or without a proclitic1 particle.2 This particle is written to, and pronounced [tu] before a vowel, [to], sometimes [tu], before a consonant. The infinitive without to is known as the PLAIN INFINITIVE.
14. The plain infinitive is only used in a verbal, never in a nominal function. In cases where other languages use a plain infinitive as the subject, object or nominal predicate of a sentence, English uses either an infinitive with to or a gerund.
To know him is to like him.
Do you like swimming? (Cf. 68 ff.)
15. The plain infinitive is used either by itself, or in combination with another verb. The latter use, which is the commonest, will be discussed first.
16. The plain infinitive is used:
a. with can/could, may/might, must, shall/should, will/would
(cf.6, 11 & 149 ff.).
Tell him he may go home.
She should have been more careful.
Will you open another window?
b. with to dare and to need (cf. 7 and 203 if.), chiefly in negative and interrogative sentences:
How dare you come here ?
He need not return the letter.
1 ’Proclitic', adj. & noun, is defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary (abbr. COD) as `(Monosyllable) closely attached in pronunciation to following word & having itself no accent' (the latter with reference to Greek).
2 A particle, acc. to COD, is a 'minor part of speech, esp. short indeclinable one'. (On the term 'part of speech', see 770.)
4
INFINITIVE
5
c. with to do (cf. 8 and 194 ff.) when used as an auxiliary of emphasis or periphrasis.
Oh, do tell us what has happened.
She did not seem to notice us.
Don't you think he is awfully clever?
d. with had better, had best (rare), had rather, had sooner.
Had not [hædn(t)] we better stop now?
I'd [aid] rather go on, if you don't mind.
I'd sooner stay where I am.
1.I'd rather and I'd sooner also serve as contracted forms of I would rather and I would sooner. The phrases with would sometimes occur in print, though those with had are commoner.
In somewhat archaic English we also find
I would as lief (or: I had as lief, cf. COD) (lief = gladly, willingly). The phrase is mostly used to repudiate a suggestion:
She cannot abide him, and would as lief marry a seal.1
2. In sentences denoting some action taken in preference to another rather than is usually followed by a plain infinitive.
He resigned rather than stifle his conscience (COD).
They determined to die rather than surrender (Wyld).
The plain inf. is also used after do nothing but, do no more than, and similar phrases: doing nothing but catch flies; did no more than reopen an old controversy.
Cf. also: All he had to do now was (to) pack his bag.
3. Note the plain inf. after better: Better bend than break (cf. Better late than never). See also 26, last ex. (= You'd better . . .).
17. There are a few more combinations of a plain infinitive with another verb; they differ, however, from those mentioned in 16 in being restricted to a number of more or less stereotyped phrases. Thus, to express one's complete indifference to something one may say: Oh, let it go hang!2 The phrase go hang is invariable; not only can the plain infinitive hang be combined with no other verb (apart, of course, from those mentioned in 16), but go (in this combination) occurs only as an infinitive. Compare
also go fetch! (order to dog, COD).
To make believe = to pretend is likewise a stereotyped phrase, in so far as the plain infinitive believe can only be combined with to make (apart,
again, from the verbs of 16); it is a little more
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1 Poutsma, A Grammar of Late Modern English, 2nd ed. (henceforward denoted by Grammar2), I, Ch. II, § 29.
2 Wyld, Universal Dictionary, e.v. hang B 2.