INFINITIVE AND GERUNDS

Lesson Topic: Infinitives

To help the poor people of the world is a noble goal.

In the above sentence, which words form the infinitive? To help. An infinitive is the base form of a verb with to. Here are some more infinitives:

To sleep To wash To love

An infinitive phrase is a group of words with an infinitive (it is NOT the whole sentence). Again, looking at the above example, what is the infinitive phrase? To help the poor people of the world.

nfinitives and infinitive phrases can be both subjects and objects in sentences. Take a look at these examples:

SUBJECT To study hard will increase your chances of getting into college. OBJECT Kathy wants to study with her friends.

There are some verbs that are followed only by infinitives. For example,

Hesitate She didn’t hesitate to tell the boss that some employees were stealing office supplies. Offer The Martin Family offered to watch their neighbor’s dog for the whole week. Promise The school promised to help me find an apartment. Want We want to visit all of the historic sites in Tehran.

These words are rarely followed by gerunds (nouns that look like -ing ending verbs).

For a list of verbs that are followed by infinitives, click here. For a list of adjectives followed by infinitives, click here. For a list of verbs followed by infinitives + object, click here. For a list of verbs that are followed by gerunds, click here.