Finite verb

“ What is meant by saying that "the human faculties are finite"?
(2.) What is the opposite of "finite"?—Give a synonym. Ans. Limited.—What participial adjective is formed from the verb to "finish"?—What is meant by a "finished gentleman"?
(3.) Give a synonym of "infinity." Ans. Boundlessness.—"The microscope reveals the fact that each drop of water contains an infinity of animalculæ." What is the sense of infinity as used in this sentence?
(4.) Combine define + ite; in + define + ite.—Analyze the word "definition."—Compose a sentence containing the word "define." ”

“ Here then we have a new grammatical form, sprung up, as it were, within the recollection of men; or, at least, in the broad daylight of history. Now, did the termination rai bud forth like a blossom in spring? or did some wise people meet together to invent this new termination, and pledge themselves to use it instead of the old termination bo? Certainly not. We see first of all that in all the Romance languages the terminations of the future are identical with the auxiliary verb to have.212 In French you find—
j'ai and je chanter-ai nous avons and nous chanterons. ”

“ Another day I shall want to know what you mean by calling the verses Present Tense, Past Tense, and Future Tense—why you have just six of your words in each tense,—and whether other verbs can be conjugated in the same way.”
“I can answer at once that they can, my lord,” said Dr. Verb. “Indeed, very few verbs change as much as the verb to be, so that they are all easier to conjugate; as, I have, thou hast, he has; we have, you have, they have. I live, thou livest, he lives; we live, you live, they live.” ”

“ Personal endings.— (1) The Ar. verb had personal endings for each of the three persons of the sg., dual and pl. These were either primary or secondary; and the primary endings differed to some extent for thematic and athematic stems. There were special endings for the perfect.
In the following list I omit the dual; and as the thematic vowel cannot be separated from the ending in some primary forms, I insert the vowel before the ending through­out, separat­ing it by a hyphen, where possible, from the personal ending proper: all the persons of thematic stems are thus put on the same level. ”

“ All the participles are wanting in defective verbs.
The verb ought, when used to express past duty or obligation, is followed by what is called the perfect infinitive—a use peculiar to itself because ought has no past form. ”

“ THE INFINITIVE PHRASE. +Hints for Oral Instruction+.—There is another form of the verb which, like the participle, cannot be the predicate of a sentence, for it cannot assert; as, She went out to see a friend; To lie is a disgrace. As this form of the verb expresses the action, being, or state in a general manner, without limiting it directly to a subject, it is called an +Infinitive+, which means without limit. The infinitive generally follows to; as, to walk, to sleep. ”

“ Each of these infinitives (to hope, to flatter, etc.) is a noun, for each is the simple subject of a sentence. Besides, an ordinary noun may be substituted for each infinitive with no change in meaning; as,—“Hope is our only resource”; “Flattery is not my custom”; “Sleep was an impossibility.”
But each of these infinitives is also a verb,—for (1) it expresses action; (2) it may be modified by an adverb, as in No. 5; (3) it takes an object if it is transitive, as in No. 6.
An infinitive (as the examples show) has regularly no subject and therefore lacks both number and person. ”

“ CHAPTER VI VERBS § 72. The MHG. verb has the following independent forms:—one voice (active) , two numbers, three persons, two tenses (present and preterite) , two complete moods (indicative and subjunctive, the latter originally the optative) , besides an imperative which is only used in the present tense; two verbal nouns (the present infinitive, and the gerund, generally called the inflected infinitive) , a present participle with active meaning, and one verbal adjective (the past participle) . ”

“ English verbs are active, as I love; or neuter, as I languish. The neuters are formed like the actives.
Most verbs signifying action may likewise signify condition or habit, and become neuters; as I love, I am in love; I strike, I am now striking.
Verbs have only two tenses inflected in their terminations, the present, and simple preterit; the other tenses are compounded of the auxiliary verbs, have, shall, will, let, may, can, and the infinitive of the active or neuter verb.
The passive voice is formed by joining the participle preterit to the substantive verb, as I am loved. ”

“ In compound sentences the verbs are placed together as in English, not separated by the object as in German. When an action is expressed in the past the word which forms with the verb the past tense is divided from the verb itself by the object. ”

“ The perfect infinitive is properly used to denote action which is completed at the time denoted by the principal verb: as, "I am glad to have seen Niagara Falls;" "He felt sorry to have hurt your feelings."
EXCEPTION.—Ought, must, need, and should (in the sense of "ought") have no distinctive form to denote past time; with these verbs present time is denoted by putting the complementary infinitive in the present tense, past time is denoted by putting the complementary infinitive in the perfect tense: as, "You ought to go," "You ought to have gone;" ”

“ Infinitives, like participles, have no tense. When active, they have an indefinite, an imperfect, a perfect, and a perfect definite form; and when passive, an indefinite and a perfect form, to express action unconnected with a subject.
267. INFINITIVES OF THE VERB CHOOSE.
To with the infinitive. ”

“ Their doctrine is this: "In popular practice it is used in the third person, without the personal termination. Thus, instead of saying, 'He dares not do it;' WE generally say, 'He dare not do it.' In like manner, need, when an active verb, is regular in its inflections; as, 'A man needs more prudence.' But when intransitive, it drops the personal terminations in the present tense, and is followed by a verb without the prefix to; as, 'A man need not be uneasy.'"--Greenleaf s Grammar Simplified, p. ”

“ Meanings of the Perfect. The perfect tense has two distinct meanings. The first of these is equivalent to the English present perfect, or perfect with have, and denotes that the action of the verb is complete at the time of speaking; as, I have finished my work. As this denotes completed action at a definite time, it is called the perfect definite.
The perfect is also used to denote an action that happened sometime in the past; as, I finished my work. As no definite time is specified, this is called the perfect indefinite. ”

“ A common instance of unidiomatic use of a particle at the end of a sentence is that of closing with the sign of the infinitive. “Do as you have a mind to” is bad English because the words “mind” and “to” do not in idea belong together. Either the verb should be expressed,—“Do as you have a mind to do,” or the sentence should be recast. However strong colloquial precedent may seem, do not allow that forlornly orphaned sign of the infinitive to come trailing along alone as a last word.
The idiomatic use of conjunctions is one mark of a finished and careful style. ”

“ Must we die?"
The INFINITIVE MOOD expresses action, passion, or being, in a general and unlimited manner, having no nominative, consequently, neither person nor number; as, "To speak, to walk."
Infinitive means unconfined, or unlimited. This mood is called the infinitive, because its verb is not confined or limited to a nominative. A verb in any other mood is limited; that is, it must agree in number and person with its nominative; but a verb in this mood has no nominative, therefore, it never changes its termination, except to form the perfect tense. ”

“ The infinitive mood is a noun. The current rule that when two verbs come together the latter is placed in the infinitive mood, means that one verb can govern another only by converting it into a noun—I begin to move = I begin the act of moving. ”

“ Superior natives, kindly missionaries and District Officers were my tutors.
I must be fair to the reader and show him a few of the simpler twists in the language, and interpret a few peculiarities. Otherwise, the forthcoming sample of what became my standard pidgin hookworm lecture might be difficult to understand.
The verb “go,” for instance. The future is “by-and-by me go,” and the past is “me go finish.” “Finish” is trickily used to express finality. When a boy is “dead finish” he is dead. When you bury a body you “plant ’im finish.” ”

“ The infinitive mood, or part of a sentence, is frequently put as the nominative case to a verb, or the object of an active-transitive verb; as, "To play is pleasant;" "Boys love to play;" "That warm climates shorten life, is reasonable to suppose;" "He does not consider how near he approaches to his end." ”

“ OBS. 11.—The notion that one verb governs an other in the infinitive, just as a transitive verb governs a noun, and so that it cannot also govern an objective case, is not only contradictory to my scheme of parsing the infinitive mood, but is also false in itself, and repugnant to the principles of General Grammar. In Greek and Latin, it is certainly no uncommon thing for a verb to govern two cases at once; and even the accusative before the infinitive is sometimes governed by the preceding verb, as the objective before the infinitive naturally is in English. ”

“ As a verb, it signifies to do the action; and as object of the preposition TO, it stands in the place of a noun for the doing of it. The infinitive verb and its prefix to are used much like a preposition and its noun object."--Felch's Comprehensive Gram., p. 62.
(2.) "The action or other signification of a verb may be expressed in its widest and most general sense, without any limitation by a person or agent, but merely as the end or purpose of some other action, state of being, quality, or thing; it is, from this want of limitation, said to be in the Infinitive mode ”

“ The phrases made by the auxiliaries may and can with the infinitive of a verb are sometimes called potential verb-phrases, because they express that an action is possible from the subject having power to perform it. ”

“ Imperfect tense.
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In such sentences as these, wherein the verb is used reflectively,—"If I lay myself down on the grass I shall catch cold," "He laid himself down on the green sward,"—the verb "to lay" is with propriety substituted for the verb "to lie;" for the addition of the emphatic pronoun myself, or himself, constituting an objective case, and coming immediately after the verb, without the intervention of a preposition, renders it necessary that the verb employed should be active, not neuter, because "active verbs govern the objective case." ”

“ A verb that forms its past tense by changing the vowel of the present, and its perfect participle by adding n or en to the present, is a verb of the strong or old conjugation; as, fall, fell, fallen.
Note.—Verbs of the old conjugation are called strong because they form their past tense within themselves. Verbs of the new conjugation are called weak because they form their past tense by the aid of an additional syllable. ”

“ Such a theory is at war with the first principles of philosophy, and denies that "like causes produce like effects."
The ablest minds have never been able to explain the foundation of a "neuter verb," or to find a single word, with a solitary exception, which does not, in certain conditions, express a positive action, and terminate on a definite object; and that exception we shall see refers to a verb which expresses the highest degree of conceivable action. ”

“ When a Verb with its Accusative case, is equivalent to a single verb, it may take this accusative after it in the passive voice; as, 'This has been put an end to.'"--Fowler's English Language, 8vo, §552. Now what is this, but an effort to teach bad English by rule?--and by such a rule, too, as is vastly more general than even the great class of terms which it was designed to include? And yet this rule, broad as it is, does not apply at all to the example given! For "put an end," without the important word "to," is not equivalent to stop or terminate. Nor is the example right. ”