Studies in the historical syntax of the Portuguese infinitive: subjective, adnominal, prepositional, substantival infinitive

Abstract

I present the historical syntax of the subjective, adnominal, prepositional, and substantival infinitive in Portuguese, starting from the historical syntax of the Latin infinitive. The subjective infinitive came from a more logical than grammatical interpretation of the objective infinitive in Latin. The adnominal infinitive was partially developed in Latin thanks to an analogical process, and was only fully developed in Portuguese thanks to the progress of the prepositional infinitive. This one, exceptional in Latin, was largely developed in Portuguese. The substantivation of the infinitive allowed it to be modified by an adjective in both Latin and Portuguese, and even to be inflected in Portuguese in the plural with the inflectional ending -[e]s, like any noun. I deal in particular with the way these infinitive species were employed in written Latin and Portuguese.