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Glite Dictionary
infinitival

infinitival

1 9.7
Relating to the base form of a verb, often with to
  • adjective
  • /ɪnˈfɪnɪtɪvəl/
  • Specialized
: infinitivo
  • An infinitival clause often begins with 'to' followed by a verb.

Examples

  • The teacher explained how to use infinitival phrases in sentences.

  • Throughout this range of infinitival relatives, we can identify one common characteristic of the grammatical cases (la, c, e, f).

    Academic text (2006)

  • Understanding infinitival forms can improve your grasp of verb tenses.

Surface Forms

infinitival positive

Morphology

infinitival = infinitive (semi-transparent) = infinitiv + al

The adjective is regularly formed from the grammatical term 'infinitive' plus '-al', but the base term is specialized linguistic vocabulary rather than a highly transparent everyday word.

Etymology

Infinitival comes from infinitive, which has the parts in- 'not' and finite 'finished', so it originally means 'not finished', the basic or 'unfinished' form of a verb. A helpful way to remember is that an infinitival phrase is about that basic verb form you often see with 'to', so infinitival means 'about or using the infinitive form'.