English Grammar Drills

Gerunds and Infinitives 87
Infinitives can be used in many ways, but in this chapter we are only concerned with infinitives
used as nouns.
An infinitive phrase is an infinitive together with all of its modifiers and/or complements.
The difference between an infinitive and an infinitive phrase is exactly the same as the difference
between a noun and a noun phrase. For example, compare the following pairs of infinitives and
infinitive phrases used as objects. The infinitives are in italics, and the entire infinitive phrase is
underlined.
We all need to sleep.
We all need to sleep for a few hours.
We want to finish.
We want to finish this job as soon as we can.
They expected to win.
They expected to win the game easily.
From now on we will use the term infinitive phrase for infinitives with or without modifiers
and/or complements. Infinitive phrases can play three of the basic four noun roles: subjects,
objects of verbs, and predicate nominatives. Unlike gerund phrases, infinitive phrases cannot be
objects of prepositions. Here are some examples of infinitive phrases as subject, object of a verb,
and predicate nominative:
Subject
To give up so easily would be a terrible thing to do.
To do our very best is all that anybody could ask of us.
To learn Chinese characters takes years.
Object of verb
We need to get some more help.
They expected to be in Dallas by noon today.
The office tried to reach him by voice mail.
Predicate nominative (complement of a linking verb)
The idea is to arrange a surprise party for Susan next week.
Our goal for this year was to increase our sales by ten percent.
The driver’s responsibility is to get all of the guests from the airport to the hotel.
As is the case with gerund phrases, infinitive phrases are a category of noun phrases. Since
infinitive phrases are nonhuman and always singular, infinitive phrases can always be replaced