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 DOI: 10.1177/007542428702000206

1987 20: 217Journal of English LinguisticsR.A. Close

Notes on the Split Infinitive  

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217

Notes on the Split Infinitive

R. A. Close

University College London, England

According to Quirk et al. in A Comprehensive Grammar of the

English Language, &dquo;the widespread prejudice against split infinitivesmust not be underestimated, especially with respect to formal writing,and indeed there is no feature of usage on which critical nativereaction more frequently focuses&dquo; (1985:497).

The prejudice is indeed widespread. In The Language of 198.4, W.F. Bolton refers to radicals who question authority in matters of usagebut still do not hesitate to condemn the split infinitive. However,apparently this condemnation is conscious only and is not alwayscarried over, even by purists, into spontaneous speech. The Compre-hensive Grammar quotes a 45-minute unscripted scientific discussion

during which the infinitive was split no fewer than nineteen times.

From a quarter of an hour’s relaxed conversation with two

native-speaking experts on English who had previously declared them-selves strongly opposed to infinitive splitting, the present writer notedthe following utterances:

(1) We’ll have to just be patient, that’s all.

(2) I wanted to still keep up my music.(3) He was able to thus establish a connection.

In section 8.21, the Grammar affirms that split infinitives are

commonest with subjuncts of &dquo;narrow orientation&dquo; and hence perhapsespecially when the infinitive is a &dquo;gradable&dquo; verb. Outside the fullcontext of Chapter 8 of the Grammar, that compact statement may beenigmatic, and the reader might not realize how the tentative secondhalf of it follows from the first. The purpose of the present notes isto expand the statement, and to attempt to determine more fully theconditions under which the split infinitive occurs in native-speakerperformance, as well as to identify the natural constraints on its

occurring at all.

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Not surprisingly, Fowler’s Modern English Usage edited by Gowers(1965) has much to say on this subject. Their dictionary both reflectsand influences the way in which educated users of British Englishconsciously write, and their comments on this particular feature of

usage are worth considering.Both Modern English Usage and A Comprehensive Grammar, the

first explicitly, the second more by the arrangement of its eighth chap-ter, treat the question as part of the wider one of which, of severalpositions in a sentence, an adverbial can acceptably occupy. Both

point out that avoidance of a split infinitive can result in ambiguity,stylistic awkwardness, or even a lapse into the unidiomatic. Thus:

(4) Our object is further to cement trade relations.(5) Students are regularly to attend all classes.

(6) We have tried earnestly to reach an agreement.(7) No one attempted to investigate thoroughly his

complaint. 1

Apart from the ambiguity of the first example, the awkwardnessof all four, and the doubt whether the last is acceptable English, it

might be noted that: a) fear of splitting an infinitive leads to the

assumption that correctness requires the adverb to be placed immedi-ately before the to particle, as in (4), (5), and (6), or, if ambiguity is

foreseen, immediately after the infinitive as in (7); b) it would be

quite normal and stylistically preferable to place the adverb in (5) and(7) at the end of the sentence, which would be its usual position in anycase; c) the awkwardness in (6) would disappear if earnestly dividedhave tried; and d) the fourth example as it stands is something thatcould really be called &dquo;bad grammar&dquo;. However natural the constraintson the split infinitive, there is a deeply-rooted rule that forbids thenative speaker,2 generally without his being aware of it, from separatinga transitive verb from its direct object unless balance and ambiguitymake it unavoidable. The power of the split infinitive taboo is suchthat it can override a rule as radical as that.

It is significant that the eminent British politician who, speakingcarefully for the record, produced (6), was later heard to make the

following protestation in a heated unprepared House of Commons inter-change :

(8) It is not my practice to in fact reveal the contents ofconfidential letters.

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Fowler and Gowers usefully present the to infinitive as only oneof a number of &dquo;verb groups&dquo;-others being have + past participle, be +

-ing, be + past participle-into which an adverbial might be inserted.

They do so mainly to show how proscription of the split infinitive hasbeen turned against splitting other combinations as well. Hence:

(9) If you wanted really to be understood ....(10) ... you ought seriously to have considered what you

were trying to say.

There the writer-and avoidance of an illusory split infinitive is perhapsmore likely to happen in careful composition than in spontaneousspeech-was no doubt obeying the &dquo;rule&dquo; that the adverb should pre-cede the infinitive marker, and might well in unscripted speech havesaid:

(9a) If you really wanted to be understood ....or (9b) If you wanted to be really understood....(lOa) ... you ought to have seriously considered (your

remarks).

The authors of Modern English Usage would certainly have

accepted (9a) and (9b), acknowledging the difference in emphasisbetween them. They would have welcomed ( l0a) for two reasons.

One, they had &dquo;no objection whatever&dquo; to dividing have + pastparticiple; they would therefore have preferred have earnestly tried in(6) and have seriously considered in (lOa). Two, and this may proveilluminating, they saw in the placing of an adverb immediately before alexical verb, as in heartily congratulated, the possibility not only of a&dquo;natural suggestion&dquo; of adjective + noun, e.g. hearty congratulations, butalso of an &dquo;intimate connection&dquo; between the adverb and the &dquo;verbal

notion&dquo;. I have tried to make a similar point: &dquo;the adverb in themedial position illustrates some aspect of the verb .... The

mid-position adverb is thus intimately connected with the verb&dquo; (Close1962:166).

Modern English Usage decides that the split infinitive is preferableto ambiguity or patent artificiality, if no other option is readilyavailable, but that it is not &dquo;desirable in itself&dquo;8. Fowler and Gowersreach their decision with the help of the assumption that to love-thechoice of that verb suggests association with amare, the first Latin verbthat schoolboys were traditionally taught-is &dquo;a definitely enoughrecognized verb-form to make the clinging together of its parts a

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natural and normal thing&dquo;. Pedagogic grammars and teachers of Eng-lish tend to take that assumption for granted when, having in mind theverb-form given in the dictionary, they refer, for example, to &dquo;the verbto love&dquo;, as if to was an integral part of it. Undeniably, to is requiredwhen the infinitive acts as a major element of clause structure, such asthe subject in:

1)) To love may simply mean to be physically attracted to

somebody.

However, although the to is essential in such a sentence, the &dquo;clingingtogether&dquo; of the two parts of the infinitive is not. Attention to what

happens in spontaneous speech shows that it is quite &dquo;natural and

normal&dquo; for native speakers of English to produce an utterance on themodel of:

(12) To really love people is to want to care for them.

A Comprehensive Grammar, not so inhibited, also appeals to thenatural order of things (though perhaps with a different conception ofnature). The Grammar suggests that, if it is natural to say to be reallyunderstood and to have seriously considered, it should be equally so toslip into:

(13) I want you to really understand.(14) You ought to seriously consider what you want to say.

Thus while the timorous turn the split infinitive taboo against verbgroups that are not infinitives at all, the less inhibited-including nativespeakers talking quite spontaneously-apply a pattern found in verb

phrases that are not infinitives to those that are.The argument that the two parts of the to-infinitive cling together

naturally is weakened by the Grammars observation that the two partsof an auxiliary sequence like ought to can be fused, too, and can allowfor the separation of the particle from the lexical verb. A rejoinder to(14) could therefore be:

(15) Yes, I suppose I ought to.

Thus, in (14) the particle to could be more firmly joined to the

auxiliary than to the lexical verb and what might cling to the latter isthe adverb. There would be no objection whatever to (14) if ought to

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were replaced by should. This perhaps accounts for the stilted effect

produced by placing the adverb between ought and to in (10). Similarcomments would apply not only to be going to, used to and have to andalso to the numerous catenative constructions beginning with, e.g., want,need and other verbs fitting into the pattern of either I want to go nowor I expect you to come with me. With certain catenatives, the to is

an obligatory complement to the first verb in the chain when the

second part is not repeated, as in:

(16a) I thought you didn’t want to play.( 16b) I didn’t, but I want to now.

The to would be crucial in I want you to or I don’t like you to.The Grammar in 8.21 associates adverbials that are likely to split

an infinitive with those that can be found at the end-median (eM) posi-tion in a clause, i.e. adverbs that can be place after two, or three,auxiliaries and immediately before the lexical verb, as in:

( 17) We have been seriously considering your application.

This association holds with seriously, hence (14) and (17), but it breaksdown with badly.

(18) The new law may have been badly formulated.

(18) is given as an example of eM in the Grammar (8.20), but wecannot accept:

(19) * [Pressure of events] caused them to badly formulate thelaw.

If badly precedes the lexical verb in (18), it is because in a passiveconstruction an adjunct that would normally come at the end of theclause can alternatively be place before the past participle.

The fact that we cannot therefore accept badly, at least in thecombination *badly formulate, as eligible to split an infinitive suggestseither that there is a subset of adverbs that will not divide the

to-infinitive construction, or that a particular adverb of manner must beable to enter into a semantic relationship with a particular verb. Weshall see later which of these two possibilities is the more likely.

It would be safe to assume that an adverb is liable to split an

infinitive if it can immediately precede a lexical verb either in a) a

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simple verb phrase, i.e. one in which there is no auxiliary-but thatwould not apply to not itself; or in b) any complex verb phraseexcept one composed of be + -ed. Hence:

(20) We seriously considered your proposal last week.(21)) We have been seriously considering it for some time.(22) We have seriously considered it already.(23) Then you’ll have to seriously consider it again.

(23) could be produced spontaneously by a native speaker who mightthen be echoing something that had just been said. To that extent at

least, the transition from (20) or (21) or (22) to (23) would be&dquo;natural&dquo;. Many split infinitives, however, are not noticeably echoes,though there is clearly a correspondence between their syntactic patternand that of the verb phrasing in (20), (21), and (22).

A significant advance towards an explanation of the use of splitinfinitives is made in the Comprehensive Grammar’s conclusion that

&dquo;Split infinitives are commonest with subjuncts of ’narrow orienta-

tion’&dquo;(1985 :497). That statement subsumes a distinction, not made inthe earlier Grammar of Contemporary English (Quirk et al. 1972),between adjunct and subjunct. In A Comprehensive Grammar, theterm &dquo;adjunct&dquo; is reserved for adverbials that are independent elementsof clause structure. The adjuncts that most concern the question ofwhether or not an infinitive can be split are adverbs of manner that

convey additional information, i.e. not in essence given in the first partof the verb phrase. That additional information might be paraphrasedby the words &dquo;and this is how it is/was done&dquo;. Their normal positionis at the end of the clause. Thus:

(24) The witness answered evasively.

On the other hand, the term &dquo;subjunct&dquo; is applied to adverbials thatare semantically subordinated either to a whole clause or sentence, inwhich case they have &dquo;wide orientation&dquo;, or to part of a clause, whentheir &dquo;orientation&dquo; is &dquo;narrow&dquo;.

The following pair exemplifies the difference between adjunct andsubjunct of &dquo;wide orientation&dquo;:

(25) We always knew that they were going to behave morally.(26) We always knew how they were going to behave, morally.

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In (25), morally is then an adjunct adding to the information conveyedby behave; in (26), it is a subjunct saying in what respect or fromwhat point of view the statement made by the rest of the sentence isvalid. 4 As *to morally behave would be unacceptable in both (25) and(26), it is understandable that the Comprehensive Grammar did not findsplit infinitives prevalent with either adjuncts or &dquo;wide-orientation&dquo; sub-

juncts. The constraint on the split infinitive in (25) is partly that thesense requires the focus to fall on the adverb, partly that behave doesnot subsume morally, since one can behave immorally or in other ways.The constraint on it in (26) is that morally is not focused on the verbalone.

There is a wide range of &dquo;narrow orientation&dquo; subjuncts that canbe related to the verb, especially when it is gradable (see Quirk et al.

1985:8.99-8.120); the width of that range and the frequency with whichsubjuncts in it are used, explains the logic of the latter half of thestatement quoted earlier. A verb is gradable when we can imagine theoccurrence to which it refers as being at a more, or less, advanced

point on a scale than a similar or comparable happening. In that

sense, corrupt and agree, for example, are gradable:

(27) Absolute power corrupts absolutely [i.e. in every way].(28) I absolutely agree. It absolutely corrupts anyone who

exercises it.

(29) You wouldn’t expect a dictator to absolutely agree with

that, would you?

In contrast with the adjunct in (27), we find a subjunct of &dquo;narrow

orientation&dquo; modifying a gradable verb in (28) and (29). The maxi-

mum, marked in (28) and (29), could be indicated by other subjuncts,e.g.

(30) I wanted to totally accept him.(31) Don’t ask me to thoroughly approve.

A high degree, short of the maximum, is implicit in:

(32) We are prepared to highly recommend this man, are we?

A moderate degree is suggested by quite, rather, more or less:

(33) I’m beginning to quite like him and he’s beginning to

rather like me too.

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(34) You’ll have to more or less modify your theory in the

light of up-to-date research.

Hardly, barely, scarcely point to a very low or a minimum degree:

(35) In the end I used to hardly eat anything till the evening.

The idea of relationship with something at a different point on anabstract scale is, however, not confined to gradable verbs. For

instance, occurrences that are not susceptible to grading can be

imagined as taking place sooner or later along a time scale, as in:

(36) People began to suddenly jump out of their seats.(37) We’ll have to finally decide what we are going to do.

Adverbs of frequency could be accommodated here:

(38) Be careful to always remember that warning.

There might also be relative positions on an abstract acoustic scale, asin:

(39) I want you to creep downstairs and to quietly shut thedoor.

In the last example I have described quietly shut as a refinement of

shut, just as creep is a modification of go; and I want you to quietlyshut the door as a statement of exactly what the speaker wanted done,as opposed to I want you to shut the door quietly, which placed moreemphasis on how the action had to be performed (Close 1962:166). Ifno occurrence of loudly shut has been recorded, it may well be that a

single-word alternative for it, namely slam, would come more easily tothe mind of a native speaker.

In addition, subjuncts can indicate the relative extent to which

achievement, referred to by a gradable or ungradable verb, is reached.Nearness to accomplishment is marked by almost, as in:

(40) We had to almost force our way in.

Completion is marked, e.g., by actually, really, in fact, which serve toemphasize the verb:

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(41) I want you to actually shout those words.(42) That argument is likely to in fact weaken your case.

Even marks an inclusive relationship with other possible occurrences:

(43) We had to even scrub the floors.

The relationship is exclusive with only and simply:

(44) I would advise you to simply tell the truth and forget therest of your story.

Examples 29-44 all illustrate subjuncts related either to the verbalone or to the whole verb phrase. They perform the important com-municative function of enabling the speaker to give an indication of howthe verb he uses is to be interpreted. That function can often befulfilled most effectively if the adverb is placed as close as possible tothe verb itself. In the first part of (33), the split infinitive isunavoidable in current usage. In other cases, the adverb could be

acceptably moved to another part of the sentence, but then it would no

longer have direct focus on the verb. In (31), thoroughly before to

would suggest that the person addressed was not to be thorough in hisasking, while the same adverb after approve becomes an adjunctmeaning ’in a thorough way’: compare to thoroughly overhaul, i.e. to

carry out a 100% overhaul, with to overhaul thoroughly. In (35), to eat

hardly anything focuses the subjunct on the direct object. In (41),actually before to would emphasize my wanting, while the same adverbmoved to the end of the sentence would become a disjunct meaning,e.g. ’that is what I mean’. In (44), I would advise you simply to tell

the truth suggests that my advice is simple, and in to tell the truth

simply the adverb would mean ’in a simple manner’. It would there-fore seem that whether Fowler would have considered examples 29-44desirable or not, they do fulfill a distinctive function in the preciseexpression of meaning.

Other subjuncts are narrowly oriented to the subject as well as

the verb.

(45) Please ask Mr. Pewsey to kindly call me back.

In (45) the speaker attributes kindness (or courtesy) to the subject ofthe infinitive clause, and assumes that kindness or courtesy consists in

acceding to a request. The message could be rephrased as:

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(45a) Please ask Mr. Pewsey to be kind enough to call meback.

There is a similar correspondence in the next three pairs:

(46) I never expected the President to cordially invite me in.(46a) The President was cordial enough to invite me in.(47) George felt he had to humbly apologize.(47a) He was humble enough to apologize.(48) They were obliged to frankly admit they had made a

mistake.

(48a) They were frank enough to admit it.

In sentences 46-48a, the person referred to is cordial, humble, or frank.It would of course be possible to avoid the split infinitives in (45),

(46), (47) and (48) by moving the adverb to the end of the sentence,thus changing it into an adjunct of manner. That would move thestress to the adverb, making it the focus of information. In (45), theadverb would then convey a different meaning. In all four cases, theadverbs would become semantically compulsory and independent.Whereas the subjunct preceding the verb must be a suitable match forit, an adjunct could be used that would express a meaning not

normally associated with the verb, thus:

(45b) I never expected him to call me back rudely.(48b) They tended to admit their mistake equivocally.

We now come to the question of if and when a specific adjunct ofmanner can be placed immediately before the verb and between theinfinitive marker to and the lexical element. We have seen that badly,in (19), is unacceptable before formulate, just as morally before behavein (25). This is due not to the ineligibility of badly and morally tooccupy certain positions but to the fact that *badly formulate and

* morally behave happen to be misfits, because we could find:

(49) Old-fashioned cars had to be started by means of a crankthat was apt to badly bruise the driver’s arm.

(50) He was so bigoted as to morally condemn everything thatgave other people any pleasure.

Of (49), it could be argued that badly is there used as a &dquo;booster&dquo;, as

in badly need; but such an argument could not be applied to (50). In

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to morally condemn, the adverb matches the verb, inasmuch as

condemning other people’s pleasure indicates a moral attitude, and theemphasis is on the verb.

We therefore have four conditions that seem conducive to splittingthe infinitive:

A. The adverb used in a clause may be closely related to

the subject, as we have seen in (46), (47), and (48), andas we can also see in (50).

B. The adverb may be related to the verb, and sometimesto the verb and its complementation, in such a way thatthe first is semantically subordinate to the second; the

meaning of the adverb is contained, partially at least, inthe meaning of the verb; and the former is a suitable

match for the latter. Thus, in (46) to invite somebody ingenerally implies cordiality; in (47) an apology requires adegree of humility; in (48) admitting a mistake is beingfrank about it; in (49) bruising can be a bad thing; andin (50), condemning other people’s pleasure means

adopting a moral attitude towards them.

C. The combination of adverb and verb may be a well-established one, in which case either the two elements

may patently share a semantic component, as in (46), orthey may not do so apparently, as in (31) thoroughlyapprove, and (32), highly recommend. It is inevitable that

the frequent use of a combination of a particular adverbwith a particular verb, especially when it results in a

rhythmic pattern, should be repeated in all the &dquo;verb

groups&dquo; that Fowler mentioned, including the to-infinitive.On the other hand, the combination may be quite originaland creative, the speaker sensing that the verb he isabout to use needs its own special modification.

D. In any case, whether in A, B, or C, the adverb is subor-dinate phonologically to the verb, which, being the moreimportant item of information, bears the stress. This nodoubt satisfies an intention to focus on the verb and touse the adverb only to intensify part or all of the mean-ing that the verb expresses. Indeed, in all the examples46-50 the adverb could be omitted without altering the

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228

essential meaning, and to that extent it is semantically aswell as structurally optional.

The most important of these conditions appear to be B and D: if theyare not fulfilled, there might be good reason for avoiding or rejecting asplit infinitive.

A remarkable example of creativity in finding a suitable and

perhaps quite original combination of adverb and verb, and fulfilling all

four of the conditions listed above, was supplied by a perceptive andnaturally eloquent survivor from an ordeal being interviewed on Britishtelevision. Without premeditation, he said:

(51) I wanted to desperately live.

He seemed to remember not only his own desperation but also the

process of surviving which had been a desperate struggle. He wouldnot have achieved that unintended effect if desperately had been placedanywhere else.

That the split infinitive is both currently productive in sponta-neous speech and likely to be caused even by a non-adverbial elementis clear from this authentic remark, heard in mid-November last:

(52) I see people are beginning to Christmas shop already.

It is typical of the unconscious facility with which such an utterance

can be produced, and at the same time of the conscious prejudiceagainst it, that the educated native speaker who spoke the words in

(51) strongly denied having done so and dismissed them as

ungrammatical.b

Notes

1. Example (4) is taken from Modern English Usage and is also

found in Partridge 1973, (5) from A Comprehensive Grammar. (6), (7),and some other examples were heard in recent British Broadcast

Corporation television programs.2. The rule very often has to be taught to speakers of other

languages learning English.

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3. Fowler pronounced the same judgment in the Society of PureEnglish Tract No. XV. Partridge went further and advised his readersto "Avoid the split infinitive wherever possible" (1973:296).

4. The Grammar of Contemporary English (1972) would havelabeled morally in (26) a viewpoint adjunct.

5. These Notes were used for a seminar at the Survey of EnglishUsage, January 1986. I am grateful to former colleagues at the

Survey—Professor Sidney Greenbaum, Dr. Robert Ilson, Dr. Bernard

Lott, Janet Whitcut and Sylvia Chalker—for their comments, which Ihave taken into account in a revised version of this paper. I

particularly thank Professor William A. Kretzschmar, Jr. for valuableadvice leading to improvements in this paper.

References

Bolton, W. F. 1984. The Language of 1984. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Close, R. A. 1962. English as a Foreign Language. London: Allen and

Unwin.

Fowler, H. W. 1965. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Rev.

and ed. by E. Gowers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Greenbaum, S. 1969. Studies in English Adverbial Usage. London:

Longman.— 1970. Verb-Intensifier Collocations in English. The Hague:

Mouton.

Partridge, E. 1973. Usage and Abusage. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik. 1972. A Gram-

mar of Contemporary English. London: Longman.— 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.

London: Longman.

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