Talk:Split infinitive/Archive 2

message: There are indeed many examples where an infinitive needs to be split to make the meaning clear, and especially to make the emphasis clear. There is also a difference in acceptability and clarity between what is written and what is spoken. That is, more care should be taken when the English is written. The article includes some of these examples. Nevertheless, there are many occasions where a little extra effort to avoid a split infinitive will greatly aid clarity or elegance. Indeed, if it were not so, there would be no controversy. Could we have some examples of these included near the beginning of the article? Another reason for taking care with these things is that little words shuffled in a range of ways in sentence are very difficult for speakers of other languages to understand. Witty lama 13:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counter example please 

message: In the "argument from classical languages" section, the article says, "In Greek and Latin, it is impossible to split infinitives because these languages never use their infinitives together with a preposition."  This doesn't make much sense to me; at best it's rather misleading.  I think what the author meant is that Latin and Greek form their infinitives with an affix on the verb itself, as opposed to with a particle (not a preposition) as in English.  Infinitives couldn't be split because they were single words. Masily box 15:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Greek splits its infinitives as an oratorial device. That extract from the article is erroneous. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 21:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm ignorant of Classical Greek - how does it do this? What infinitival particles are used? Slac speak up! 23:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Coïncidentally, it is the same as English’s: “to” (though pronounced tɒ, as opposed to the English tʊ). It was explained to me a long time ago by someone much more familiar with Classical Greek than I am; I can’t remember how it’s split, only that it is split. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 11:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "το" is the neuter definite article in Greek. It can be used with the infinitive to make a kind of gerund: "το λυειν" would mean "the (act of) loosening" or the like. I suppose it could be separated from the infinitive by an adjective or something, but it's not really the same thing as the English split infinitive. User:Angr 11:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classical Languages Argument 

message: I'm not a big fan of having the startrek reference in the intro of the article, but that's a minor issue compared to the entire paragraph discussing. The intro should not discuss alternate ways of beginning a startrek episode. Vicarious 11:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only real reason it's there is that it's a popular, extremely well-known example of a split infinitive. The fact that it's a Star Trek reference is essentially tangential. Thefamouseccles 00:03, 16 Oct 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To boldly complain about the intro 

message: Am I the only one who thinks this article needs serious reorganization?  Right now I'd like to give it some, maybe in the next week or so.  —JerryFriedman 21:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  reorg 

message: This is all very interesting, but I'm not sure it belongs in the article, at least in the main part.  Maybe it can be some kind of sidebar, if we get good references.  I think we could begin the history of the article at Anglo-Saxon.  (But maybe I'm prejudiced because I'm thinking the history belongs right after the lead.) - JerryFriedman 22:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, probably it belongs in the article on the infinitive; but my thinking was that we can't really understand what a split infinitive is without understanding what the particle is, and why a Germanic infinitive is different from, say, Latin.  --Doric Loon 09:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Feedback to point 1

message: This last (Germanic influence on prepositions before the infinitive) needs a citation, imho. - JerryFriedman 22:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. These are my own conclusions; we need authorities.   --Doric Loon 09:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Feedback to point 4

message: It might be a coincidence.  A citation would be great; if we don't have one, I think we should call it speculation.  What would be really awesome would be examples of how infinitives were treated in the French and German of those same centuries, or at least evidence that it was the same then as it is now. - JerryFriedman 22:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind your moving my comments, DL, and I wish that while you were at it, you had read my mind and deleted the parenthesis I just crossed out :-) Anyway, it looks like we agree on a lot, and now I see that you did mention the need for authorities.  —JerryFriedman 21:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can see, I got started on the history with some things I have citations for (many of them thanks to User:150.203.177.218).  —JerryFriedman 00:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: It's good to know I'm accomplishing something.  —JerryFriedman 21:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way, I don't feel done with the reorganization.  For instance, I'd like the article to discuss moving the adverb or rewriting the sentence only once.  And is there any way we can move the ridiculous red herring about Latin the argument from classical languages to some kind of sidebar?  —JerryFriedman 21:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Feedback to point 5

message: Anybody out there got Visser so we can refer directly to him instead of Nagle?  —JerryFriedman 17:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Better reference

message: I took out the following text.
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===The full infinitive as a prerequisite===
In English grammar the bare infinitive do is distinguished from the full infinitive to do, and to do is often used as the citation form. This is probably because the English infinitive lacks any distinctive inflection, in contrast to French and German, where the bare infinitive is recognisable as such. Therefore in English, the word to is conceptualized as part of the infinitive, whereas in French and German, à/de and zu are not. The difference is subjective, as the constructions are parallel, but this functional difference in English perception allowed for the subsequent admonition against split-infinitive constructions.
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My reasons were
#It's speculative.
#Two of the first three anti-splitters quoted mention the bare infinitive as the infinitive and the to as a particle, in modern fashion.  Thus if we had to speculate on their concepts, we'd say they came up with their admonitions without conceptualizing to as part of the infinitive.  —JerryFriedman 21:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of "The full infinitive as a prerequisite" 

message: In English grammar the bare infinitive do is distinguished from the full infinitive to do, and to do is often used as the citation form. This is probably because the English infinitive lacks any distinctive inflection, in contrast to French and German, where the bare infinitive is recognisable as such. Therefore in English, the word to is conceptualized as part of the infinitive, whereas in French and German, à/de and zu are not. The difference is subjective, as the constructions are parallel, but this functional difference in English perception allowed for the subsequent admonition against split-infinitive constructions.
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My reasons were
#It's speculative.
#Two of the first three anti-splitters quoted mention the bare infinitive as the infinitive and the to as a particle, in modern fashion.  Thus if we had to speculate on their concepts, we'd say they came up with their admonitions without conceptualizing to as part of the infinitive.  —JerryFriedman 21:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The full infinitive as a prerequisite

message: "One reason why the older generation feel so strongly about English grammar is that we were severely punished if we didn't obey the rules!  One split infinitive, one whack; two split infinitives, two whacks; and so on."  —A correspondent to the BBC on a program(me) about English grammar in 1983.  Quoted by David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 91 (searchable at Amazon).  —JerryFriedman 22:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's edging on the "grammar is a big list of Dont's that you get taught in English class" fallacy, and I don't think that's a misconception we should risk propagating. Unfortunately the BBC (as with most other major media outlets) is really shoddy with linguistic issues. Strad 05:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The quotation is from a correspondent, not the BBC, and as it's used to establish that the rule was firmly entrenched, not to discuss the origin of the rule, I think it's okay.  I hope we've made the origin quite clear at this point.  —JerryFriedman 23:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotation for possible use 

message: I removed lots of text, with apologies to the authors and no desire to foreclose discussion of it.  I removed this as unsourced "piling on" in regard to prescriptivism.
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:Stylistically, the careful placement of another word between to and the bare infinitive sometimes avoids ambiguity or ugliness.  The old prohibition on split infinitives is particularly surprising when one observes that there are a number of expressions in English that are weakened considerably by avoiding the split infinitive.
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And this as a pointless example of debate in the article instead of the discussion page.
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In other instances, use of a split infinitive is for many people the most natural way to add certain kinds of emphasis in conversation:
:Student A: "I'm going to do better next year."
:Student B: "I'm going to really     do better next year."
It is not necessary to split the infinitive in the above example, however.  It could just as easily be said that "I'm really going to do better next year."  The speaker may also have intended to say: "I'm going to do much better next year."
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And this because the first sentence is superfluous and I don't see the relevance of the second.  (If it has some, it needs to be rewritten, imo.)
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:The best way to avoid using split infinitives is usually via a change in lexical choices.  However, in spoken language, phonetic stresses and timing is usually all that is needed for a sentence's actual implications to be understood.
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And this because you can split an infinitive with nothing modal in sight, e.g., "The goal is to further exclude Arafat." (Quoted by Burchfield from U. S. News and World Report.)  Indeed neither infinitive below ("to disentangle" and "to split") is accompanied by a modal.
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:It is probably not possible to disentangle this argument from the modality of English grammar. Typically, in a phrase such as "I am going to", the verbal construct "to be going to" acts as a modal verb, analogous to other standard modal verbs "will", "could", "can" etc. In this sense, it becomes apparent that the preposition 'to' does not belong to the infinitive verb, but rather to the modal verb. In this case, it becomes impossible to split an infinitive.
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And this because it's POV (though I agree with it completely) and unnecessary
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:The rule of thumb should always be to make it easier for the reader or listener to understand.
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—JerryFriedman 22:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More removed text 

message: The 1851 edition of Goold Brown's Grammar of Grammars is at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11615/11615-8.txt .  I just looked through it and couldn't find anything about split infinitives.  (There's a LOT, though, about how the infinitive and especially the to are to be interpreted.)  It makes me wonder whether he didn't address the question till the 1873 edition.  —JerryFriedman 00:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As Emily Litella used to say, "Never mind."  —JerryFriedman 17:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goold Brown 

message: Is there room for this Douglas Adams quote in the article? It is, of course, a spoof of Star Trek.
TRiG 23:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ...to boldly split infinitives that no man had ever split before!

message: At least do so earlier in the article. It appears at least twice without any explanation of what it means. Xiner 22:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  Done.  —JerryFriedman 23:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Define "compound split infinitive" 

message: Okay, I gave it another shot.  See what you think.  I took out parts that say things we now have quotes for.  —JerryFriedman 00:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Jerry, I am less uncomfortable with this than with what you did last time.  BUT - you leave Moriaty looking like an authority.  It needs to be pointed out that she is wrong (attestably, factually) when she says that the prescriptive rule dates from a time when all serious writing was in Latin.  That ceased to be the case in the 16th century, but opposition to the split infinitive begins in the 19th.  I think you need to say much more strongly that like all of the others who make this claim she cites no sources and is obviously utterly unable to find a SERIOUS writer who has ever argued this way.  (I still doubt that ANY prescriptionist has ever argued in quite this way, but since I don't want to reopen debate on subtleties, I will content myself with the statement that the only writer we have sofar found who argued in anything remotely resembling this manner was (as I think we have all agreed) pretty second-rate.) I find that the last sentence of a section carries particular weight, and I would like to see the last sentence of this section coming back to the point that anti-prescriptivist assersions about the ACL are as yet entirely unproven.  --Doric Loon 10:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're right, and I tried, but now it may be too long.  I welcome other contributions.  —JerryFriedman 18:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: No, that's good. Well done. --Doric Loon 16:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Good NPOV, well cited, and not too long in my opinion. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 12:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trying again 

message: This is in reference to the impossibility of 'splitting' infinitives. To be sure: English(analytic) was modeled after latin (synthetic) by the earliest prescriptive pedants enthralled with Latin who failed to see that Latin infinitives consist of one word and are impossible split. (Q.v. Sir Thomas Smith's cortex-withering DeRecta et Emendata Linguae Anglicae Scriptione Dialogus of 1568.)
:Sorry, could you make that a bit clearer?  If the Smith quote is relevant, please give us it.  But don't deride 16th-century writers for the crime of thinking 16th-century thoughts.  There was nothing pedantic about valuing Latin at a time when all serious literature was written in the language, and there was nothing simple-minded about modelling English on Latin at a time when philology had not yet come to realise either the nature of English or the very modern principle that each language is as good as any other.  Looking down on past generations is an anachronistic approach - probably more unscholarly than the faults you criticise them for.  So please help us to clarify what Smith and others thought, but do it with clear citations (in Latin if he wrote Latin) and objective analysis, not with value judgments.  --Doric Loon 16:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Split infinitives in Latinism context (additive reference) 

message: Does anybody know how old this term is, or where it originated? I wanted to add a note on this to the History of the Term section, where we have earliest attested references for other related forms, but I couldn't find anything on it.  I suspect it is relatively recent.  I hope it was not coined for our Wikipedia article! --Doric Loon 11:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Compound Split Infitive

message: In the last paragraph of the section entitled "Origins", the sentence "She will gradually get rid of her teddy bears" is given as an example of the tendency toward placing adverbs imediately precedent to an infinitive verb. While this sentence is indeed exemplary of such a tendency; being itself a case of an indivisable infinitive, it isn't very helpful in explaining incidences of split infinitives. I think it should be less confusing if the article were to use an example with a "to" infinitive. Considder "She wishes to gradually get rid of her teddy bears." or "She is going to gradually get rid of her teddy bears."--Jr mints 18:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But I think that's the point. The sentence She will gradually get rid of her TBs may or may not contain an infinitive, depending on how you analyze it.  Will get is the future tense.  Historical linguists will see this tense as being formed from a modal + infinitive construction, but synchronic linguists simply see the whole phrase as a two-part finite verb.  But even synchronic linguists may see an analogy to an infinitive construction.  So this sentence is not meant to be a split infinitive - it is, rather, an example of a finite verb being split by an adverbial, which is very common in English.  The theory is that this then was transferred to the infinitive proper, producing a split infinitive.  To make sense, the argument has got to start from an example which is finite.  --Doric Loon 21:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins 

message: I did read somewhere (unfortunately I cannot remember where) that the split inifinitive should be considered a rhetorical error, not a grammatical error, and that people often confused the two. Esthameian 22:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rhetoric