An infinitive is the verb's to form: λύειν "to free", εἶναι "to be". It has a tense and a voice, and it can take an object, but it has no person or number: λύειν does not say who frees. The Greek grammarians called it ἡ ἀπαρέμφατος, "the mood that does not indicate".
λύω: infinitives
In the present the middle and the passive share their form. To be: εἶναι (present), ἔσεσθαι (future).
| active | middle | passive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| present | λύειν336 | λύεσθαι89 | λύεσθαι89 |
| future | λύσειν28 | λύσεσθαι6 | λυθήσεσθαι14 |
| aorist | λῦσαι292 | λύσασθαι17 | λυθῆναι88 |
With another verb. Many verbs need a second verb to complete them, as in English: βούλομαι λύειν "I want to free", δύναμαι λέγειν "I can speak", ἐθέλω μένειν "I am willing to stay". So do δεῖ "it is necessary" and χρή "one ought", with the person in the accusative: δεῖ σε λέγειν "you must speak" (literally "it is necessary that you speak").
Present or aorist? Outside reported speech the two infinitives differ not in time but in how the action is seen, as with the participles of lesson 15: the present for something going on or repeated, the aorist for the act as a whole. βούλομαι λύειν "I want to be freeing (them, one after another)", βούλομαι λῦσαι "I want to free (him)". English usually says "to free" for both.
ὁ Κῦρος ἀναβαίνει.
said “Cyrus is going up.”
ὁ πόλεμος ἔσται μέγας.
said “The war will be great.”
The rule. After verbs of saying and thinking (φημί "say", νομίζω "think", οἴομαι "suppose", ἐλπίζω "expect, hope"), Greek reports with the accusative and the infinitive. The infinitive keeps the tense of the plain statement: present for present, future for future, and aorist for something that happened: φασὶ τὸν Κῦρον ἀναβῆναι "they say that Cyrus went up". When the subject is the speaker's own, it is left out, and words describing it stay in the nominative: νομίζει σοφὸς εἶναι "he thinks that he is wise". (λέγω "say" more often takes ὅτι "that" with an ordinary verb, as English does.)
As a noun. With the neuter article an infinitive becomes a noun, and the article shows its case: τὸ λέγειν "speaking", τοῦ λέγειν "of speaking", ἐν τῷ λέγειν "while speaking". It can still take an object: τὸ λύειν τοὺς δούλους "freeing the slaves".
Purpose. After verbs of giving and sending, and in Homer and the New Testament after verbs of going too, a plain infinitive can say what for: ἦλθον καταλῦσαι "I came to destroy".
βούλομαι λῦσαι τὸν ἵππον. I want to untie the horse. Aorist infinitive: the act as a whole.
δεῖ τὸν ἄνδρα λέγειν. The man must speak. «δεῖ» with the accusative and the infinitive.
φασὶ τὸν δοῦλον λυθῆναι. They say that the slave was freed. Aorist passive infinitive in reported speech: something that happened.
νομίζει σοφὸς εἶναι. He thinks that he is wise. The subject is his own, so it is left out, and «σοφός» stays nominative.
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"Which of the gods brought the two together to fight in strife?" μάχεσθαι, the present infinitive of μάχομαι "fight", says what for. σφωε "the two of them" is a dual: Greek, and Homer's above all, has special forms for a pair.
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"I did not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Two aorist infinitives of purpose. καταλῦσαι is λύω with κατα- "down": to loosen down, to destroy. πληρῶσαι is from πληρόω "fill, fulfil"; its vowel lengthens before the σ (lesson 17).
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"He gave them the right to become children of God." γενέσθαι is the aorist infinitive of γίγνομαι "become" (lesson 14), middle in form, as its ending shows.
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"All human beings by nature reach out for knowing": the first sentence of the Metaphysics. τοῦ εἰδέναι, article and infinitive, is a noun in the genitive, because ὀρέγομαι "reach for, desire" takes the genitive. εἰδέναι is the infinitive of οἶδα "know".
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Thucydides began his history "expecting that it would be great and the most worth telling of all that had gone before". The war is the unspoken subject of the future infinitive ἔσεσθαι; μέγαν and ἀξιολογώτατον are accusative because they describe it.
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Darius is dying: "he wanted both his sons to be with him". παρεῖναι is εἶναι with παρα- "beside": to be present. Its subject, the two sons, is in the accusative; τὼ παῖδε ἀμφοτέρω is a dual, the form for a pair.
Greek shown exactly as the source file gives it. Click any word to look it up.
- βούλομαι …
- δύναμαι …
- δεῖ …
- φημί …
- νομίζω …
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