A grammar of the Homeric dialect - Wilbourhall.org

242.] ORIGIN OF THE INFINITIVE. 207
II. 2. 4*2 Zei5 Kvbi(TT, /xeytore, KeA.atzt(/)ej, alOcpi vaiwv,
JXT) TT/HZJ
7r'
r]tkiov bvvai, KT\. (cp. 3. 285., 7. 179).
Od. 17. 354 Zei) aVa, Trj\fjLaxov /xot ez> avopdviv o\(3ioi> tlvai.
An Infinitive of wish is used with the Subject in the Nom.,
once of the Second Person, and once of the First Person :
Od. 7. 311 at yap Ze re -TrdVep Kat 'AOrjvair) Kat "AiroXXov
rotos ea>u otos efrat, ra re (frpovewv a T ey&> Trep,
TratSa r' e/xr)z; e^e/xev Kat e/xo? yafjifipos
KC
it yap . . otoj N?)ptKOi> etAoy . . rotos e
\ > /
Kat afjivvtiv.
The force of the Infinitive in all these uses seems to be that of
an indirect Imperative. The command is given as something
following on an expressed or implied state of things. Thus we
may connect the idiom with the use of the Infinitive to imply
fitness, obligation, &c. ( 231); compare etcrt Kat ot6e rad' etVejue^
these are here to say this with Kat 8e ay etTre/xeuat it is your part to
say. There is a similar use of the Infinitive in Sanscrit, with
ellipse of the verb to be (Delbriick, A. S. p. 15 : Whitney, 982,
It should be noticed, however, that other languages have developed a use of
the Infinitive in commands, to which this explanation does not apply : as
Germ, schritt fahren ! In these cases we may recognise a general tendency
towards the impersonal form. It is very probable that the ordinary 2 Sing.
Imper. \4ye represents an original use of the Tense-stem without any Personending
(Paul, Principien, p. 108).
242.] Origin and history of the Infinitive. That the Greek
Infinitive was originally the Dative of an abstract Noun is
proved by comparison with Sanscrit. *
In the Veda and Brahmana
a number of verbal nouns, nomina actionis, in various of
their cases, are used in constructions which assimilate them to
the infinitive of other languages although, were it not for these
other later and more developed and pronounced infinitives, the
constructions in question might pass as ordinary case-constructions
of a somewhat peculiar kind' (Whitney, 969). In the
Veda these Infinitives, or Case-forms on the way to become
Infinitives (werdende Infinitive, Delbr.), are mostly Datives, expressing
end or purpose, and several of them are identical in
formation with Greek Infinitives ;
as ddvane BoOmi (boFevai,),
vidmane fiSfAemi, -dhyai -aBai,* -ase -