OT: split infinitive [was Re: torturing BTQ]

Jerry Friedman · 31 Jul 2009, 00:24 · from 2009-July.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:24:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) OT: split infinitive [was Re: torturing BTQ]
In-Reply-To: <937432300907291629m4c3b3458p525a654f4b4a502c at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <45406.30466.qm at web50705.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Interesting.  I agree that you usually shouldn't put a lot
of words between an auxiliary verb and a main verb, or
between "to" and an infinitive.  (By the way, I'm told
that Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar treats this "to"
as an auxiliary verb!)  But English speakers *have always
split* compound verbs with single words, and we still *do
not avoid* it.  So this doesn't strike me as an argument
against splitting infinitives with single words.

Jerry Friedman

--- On Wed, 7/29/09, Milton Jackson <miltonwjackson at gmail.com> wrote:
> When I took grammar in high school, my
> English teacher told me the reason compound verbs and
> infinitives shouldn't be split was that large numbers of
> words between the component parts of the phrase broke the
> flow of the sentence. How true that is I don't know, but
> that's what I was taught.
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 1:22 PM,
> Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> --- On
> Wed, 7/29/09, James B. Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > At 03:10 PM 7/23/2009, you wrote:
> ...
> ?
> >> Everything
> >> I know about split infinitives (and some things
> other
> >> people know) is at
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
> 
> >
> > I was taught that the rule against split infinitives
> comes
> > from the
> > oppression of Latin grammar imposed on English. Latin
> > infinitives are one
> > word; hence English infinitives must be treated as
> one
> 
> > word.
> 
> You put that clearly. ?However, though many people
> have been taught that (including me), I'd like to see
> some evidence for it. ?When the rule against split
> infinitives was first stated, in the 19th century, did
> 
> anyone actually justify the rule with Latin grammar? ?Is
> there any reason to think that was anyone's
> justification?
> 
> I'd be interested in any citation earlier than the one
> in the Wikipedia article (John Opdycke, 1941). ?I'm
> not
> 
> looking for people claiming without evidence, "The
> split
> infinitive was banned because of an analogy with
> Latin"--
> we have plenty of those.
> 
> Jerry Friedman
> 
> 
> 
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