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117-449: In traditional descriptions of English , the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to . Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb ). The form without to is called the bare infinitive , and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive . In many other languages

234-411: A constituent of a larger clause or sentence; for example it may form a noun phrase or adverb . Infinitival clauses may be embedded within each other in complex ways, like in the sentence: Here the infinitival clause to get married is contained within the finite dependent clause that John Welborn is going to get married to Blair ; this in turn is contained within another infinitival clause, which

351-553: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that

468-644: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become

585-526: A bare infinitive verb. Infinitives are negated by simply preceding them with not . Of course the verb do , when complementing a finite verb, occurs as an infinitive. However, the auxiliary verbs have (used to form the perfect ) and be (used to form the passive voice and continuous aspect ) often occur as an infinitive: "I should have finished by now"; "It's thought to have been a burial site"; "Let him be released"; "I hope to be working tomorrow." Huddleston and Pullum 's Cambridge Grammar of

702-658: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative

819-399: A few bordering Western Swedish dialects the reduction to -e was only partial, leaving some infinitives in -a and others in -e (å laga vs. å kaste). In northern parts of Norway the infinitive suffix is completely lost (å lag’ vs. å kast’) or only the -a is kept (å laga vs. å kast’). The infinitives of these languages are inflected for passive voice through the addition of -s or -st to

936-411: A few verbs that cannot be converted into the nominal long infinitive. The "short infinitives" used in verbal contexts (e.g., after an auxiliary verb) have the endings -a , -ea , -e , and -i (basically removing the ending in "-re"). In Romanian, the infinitive is usually replaced by a clause containing the conjunction să plus the subjunctive mood. The only verb that is modal in common modern Romanian

1053-490: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English

1170-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in

1287-695: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,

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1404-684: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop

1521-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English

1638-758: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide

1755-469: A subordinate clause is the more usual form. For that reason, the present first-person singular conjugation is the dictionary form in Bulgarian, while Macedonian uses the third person singular form of the verb in present tense. Hebrew has two infinitives, the infinitive absolute (המקור המוחלט) and the infinitive construct (המקור הנטוי or שם הפועל). The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and

1872-669: A variety of roles within sentences, often being nouns (for example being the subject of a sentence or being a complement of another verb), and sometimes being adverbs or other types of modifier. Many verb forms known as infinitives differ from gerunds (verbal nouns) in that they do not inflect for case or occur in adpositional phrases . Instead, infinitives often originate in earlier inflectional forms of verbal nouns. Unlike finite verbs, infinitives are not usually inflected for tense , person , etc. either, although some degree of inflection sometimes occurs; for example Latin has distinct active and passive infinitives. An infinitive phrase

1989-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in

2106-645: A verb in the subjunctive mood ) or urīdu kitābata kitābin (lit. "I want the writing of a book", with the masdar or verbal noun), and in Levantine Colloquial Arabic biddi aktub kitāb (subordinate clause with verb in subjunctive). Even in languages that have infinitives, similar constructions are sometimes necessary where English would allow the infinitive. For example, in French the sentence "I want you to come" translates to Je veux que vous veniez (lit. "I want that you come", come being in

2223-444: A verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase ). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles , converbs , gerunds and gerundives ), infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject ; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non-finite clause , called an infinitive (infinitival) clause . Such phrases or clauses may play

2340-563: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than

2457-540: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by

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2574-536: Is a clause that can stand by itself as a simple sentence . An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or by using a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction ( and , but , for , or , nor , so , yet , etc.). In the following example sentences , independent clauses are underlined , and conjunctions are in bold . Single independent clauses: Multiple independent clauses: This syntax -related article

2691-627: Is a verb phrase constructed with the verb in infinitive form. This consists of the verb together with its objects and other complements and modifiers . Some examples of infinitive phrases in English are given below – these may be based on either the full infinitive (introduced by the particle to ) or the bare infinitive (without the particle to ). Infinitive phrases often have an implied grammatical subject making them effectively clauses rather than phrases. Such infinitive clauses or infinitival clauses , are one of several kinds of non-finite clause . They can play various grammatical roles like

2808-466: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English

2925-610: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in

3042-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on

3159-486: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c.  450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as

3276-640: Is commonplace in the Hebrew Bible . In Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-register literary works. Note, however, that the Hebrew to -infinitive is not the dictionary form ; instead, verbs are traditionally cited in the third-person masculine singular of the suffix conjugation (Modern Hebrew past tense), which is the least marked form. The Finnish grammatical tradition includes many non-finite forms that are generally labeled as (numbered) infinitives although many of these are functionally converbs . To form

3393-546: Is contained in the finite independent clause (the whole sentence). The grammatical structure of an infinitival clause may differ from that of a corresponding finite clause. For example, in German , the infinitive form of the verb usually goes to the end of its clause, whereas a finite verb (in an independent clause) typically comes in second position . Following certain verbs or prepositions, infinitives commonly do have an implicit subject, e.g., As these examples illustrate,

3510-630: Is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: בכתוב הסופר bikhtōbh hassōphēr "when the scribe wrote", אחרי לכתו ahare lekhtō "after his going". When the infinitive construct is preceded by ל ‎ ( lə- , li- , lā- , lo- ) "to", it has a similar meaning to the English to -infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus and emphasis, like in מות ימות ‎ mōth yāmūth (literally "a dying he will die"; figuratively, "he shall indeed/surely die"). This usage

3627-431: Is more flexible than the other Slavic languages in breaking the infinitive through a clause. The infinitive nevertheless remains the dictionary form. Bulgarian and Macedonian have lost the infinitive altogether except in a handful of frozen expressions where it is the same as the 3rd person singular aorist form. Almost all expressions where an infinitive may be used in Bulgarian are listed here ; neverthess in all cases

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3744-536: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by

3861-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in

3978-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English

4095-624: Is still identical to the Latin forms), and in -arsi , -ersi , -rsi , -irsi for the reflexive forms. In Spanish and Portuguese , infinitives end in -ar , -er , or -ir ( Spanish also has reflexive forms in -arse , -erse , -irse ), while similarly in French they typically end in -re , -er , oir , and -ir . In Romanian , both short and long-form infinitives exist; the so-called "long infinitives" end in -are, -ere, -ire and in modern speech are used exclusively as verbal nouns, while there are

4212-564: Is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and

4329-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from

4446-463: Is the verb a putea , to be able to. However, in popular speech the infinitive after a putea is also increasingly replaced by the subjunctive. In all Romance languages, infinitives can also form nouns. Latin infinitives challenged several of the generalizations about infinitives. They did inflect for voice ( amare , "to love", amari , to be loved) and for tense ( amare , "to love", amavisse , "to have loved"), and allowed for an overt expression of

4563-451: Is traditionally applied to the unmarked form of the verb (the "plain form" ) when it forms a non-finite verb , whether or not introduced by the particle to . Hence sit and to sit , as used in the following sentences, would each be considered an infinitive: The form without to is called the bare infinitive ; the form introduced by to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive . The other non-finite verb forms in English are

4680-485: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English

4797-505: The Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it

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4914-546: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today

5031-552: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of

5148-663: The Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are

5265-767: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on

5382-604: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as

5499-403: The dictionary form or citation form of a verb. The form listed in a dictionary entry is the bare infinitive, but the to -infinitive is often used when defining other verbs, e.g. For further detail and examples of the uses of infinitives in English, see Bare infinitive and To -infinitive in the article on uses of English verb forms. The original Proto-Germanic ending of the infinitive

5616-442: The gerund or present participle (the -ing form), and the past participle – these are not considered infinitives. Moreover, the unmarked form of the verb is not considered an infinitive when it forms a finite verb : like a present indicative ("I sit every day"), subjunctive ("I suggest that he sit "), or imperative (" Sit down!"). (For some irregular verbs the form of the infinitive coincides additionally with that of

5733-518: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in

5850-401: The to -infinitive have a variety of uses in English. The two forms are mostly in complementary distribution – certain contexts call for one, and certain contexts for the other; they are not normally interchangeable, except in occasional instances like after the verb help , where either can be used. The main uses of infinitives (or infinitive phrases) are varied: The infinitive typically is

5967-564: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to

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6084-617: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with

6201-608: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through

6318-524: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English

6435-547: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent

6552-494: The English Language (2002) does not use the notion of the "infinitive" ("there is no form in the English verb paradigm called 'the infinitive'"), only that of the infinitival clause , noting that English uses the same form of the verb, the plain form , in infinitival clauses that it uses in imperative and present-subjunctive clauses. A matter of controversy among prescriptive grammarians and style writers has been

6669-588: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of

6786-557: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in

6903-461: The Latin future infinitives or the English perfect and progressive infinitives. Latin has present, perfect and future infinitives, with active and passive forms of each. For details see Latin conjugation § Infinitives . English has infinitive constructions that are marked (periphrastically) for aspect: perfect , progressive (continuous), or a combination of the two ( perfect progressive ). These can also be marked for passive voice (as can

7020-554: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after

7137-494: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In

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7254-437: The above examples, the object of the transitive verb "want" and the preposition "for" allude to their respective pronouns' subjective role within the clauses. In some languages, infinitives may be marked for grammatical categories like voice , aspect , and to some extent tense . This may be done by inflection , as with the Latin perfect and passive infinitives, or by periphrasis (with the use of auxiliary verbs ), as with

7371-475: The active form. This suffix appeared in Old Norse as a contraction of mik (“me”, forming -mk ) or sik (reflexive pronoun, forming -sk ) and originally expressed reflexive actions: (hann) kallar (“[he] calls”) + -sik (“himself”) > (hann) kallask (“[he] calls himself”). The suffixes -mk and -sk later merged into -s , which evolved to -st in the western dialects. The loss or reduction of -a in

7488-458: The active voice and γραφ(τ)εί for the passive voice (coming from the ancient passive aorist infinitive γραφῆναι ). The infinitive in Russian usually ends in -t’ (ть) preceded by a thematic vowel , or -ti (ти), if not preceded by one; some verbs have a stem ending in a consonant and change the t to č’ , like *mogt’ → moč’ (*могть → мочь) "can". Some other Balto-Slavic languages have

7605-653: The active voice in Norwegian did not occur in the passive forms ( -ast , -as ), except for some dialects that have -es . The other North Germanic languages have the same vowel in both forms. The formation of the infinitive in the Romance languages reflects that in their ancestor, Latin , almost all verbs had an infinitive ending with -re (preceded by one of various thematic vowels). For example, in Italian infinitives end in -are , -ere , -rre (rare), or -ire (which

7722-448: The appropriateness of separating the two words of the to -infinitive (as in "I expect to happily sit here"). For details of this, see split infinitive . Opposing linguistic theories typically do not consider the to -infinitive a distinct constituent , instead regarding the scope of the particle to as an entire verb phrase; thus, to buy a car is parsed like to [buy [a car]] , not like [to buy] [a car] . The bare infinitive and

7839-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,

7956-453: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of

8073-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c.  1385 Middle English

8190-421: The complement clause is transitive , or ica- [ika-] (and no vowel change) if the complement clause is intransitive . The infinitive shows agreement in number with the controlling subject. Examples are: icatax ihmiimzo 'I want to go', where icatax is the singular infinitive of the verb 'go' (singular root is -atax ), and icalx hamiimcajc 'we want to go', where icalx is the plural infinitive. Examples of

8307-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of

8424-701: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into

8541-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered

8658-476: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and

8775-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially

8892-421: The eating , but also the food . In Dutch infinitives also end in -en ( zeggen — to say ), sometimes used with te similar to English to , e.g., "Het is niet moeilijk te begrijpen" → "It is not hard to understand." The few verbs with stems ending in -a have infinitives in -n ( gaan — to go , slaan — to hit ). Afrikaans has lost the distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with

9009-551: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from

9126-695: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases

9243-498: The exception of the verbs "wees" (to be), which admits the present form "is", and the verb "hê" (to have), whose present form is "het". In North Germanic languages the final -n was lost from the infinitive as early as 500–540 AD, reducing the suffix to -a . Later it has been further reduced to -e in Danish and some Norwegian dialects (including the written majority language bokmål ). In the majority of Eastern Norwegian dialects and

9360-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in

9477-436: The fifth infinitive (with a third-person suffix) of hypätä "jump" is hyppäämäisillään "he was about to jump", not *hyppäämaisillaan . The Seri language of northwestern Mexico has infinitival forms used in two constructions (with the verb meaning 'want' and with the verb meaning 'be able'). The infinitive is formed by adding a prefix to the stem: either iha- [iʔa-] (plus a vowel change of certain vowel-initial stems) if

9594-721: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of

9711-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,

9828-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where

9945-482: The implicit subject of the infinitive occurs in the objective case (them, him) in contrast to the nominative case that occurs with a finite verb, e.g., "They ate their dinner." Such accusative and infinitive constructions are present in Latin and Ancient Greek , as well as many modern languages. The atypical case regarding the implicit subject of an infinitive is an example of exceptional case-marking . As shown in

10062-490: The infinitive has four tenses (present, future, aorist, perfect) and three voices (active, middle, passive). Present and perfect have the same infinitive for both middle and passive, while future and aorist have separate middle and passive forms. Thematic verbs form present active infinitives by adding to the stem the thematic vowel -ε- and the infinitive ending -εν , and contracts to -ειν , e.g., παιδεύ-ειν . Athematic verbs, and perfect actives and aorist passives, add

10179-525: The infinitive has thus changed form and function and is used mainly in the formation of periphrastic tense forms and not with an article or alone. Instead of the Ancient Greek infinitive system γράφειν, γράψειν, γράψαι, γεγραφέναι , Modern Greek uses only the form γράψει , a development of the ancient Greek aorist infinitive γράψαι . This form is also invariable. The modern Greek infinitive has only two forms according to voice: for example, γράψει for

10296-856: The infinitive is a distinct single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like cantar ("[to] sing") in Portuguese , morir ("[to] die") in Spanish , manger ("[to] eat") in French , portare ("[to] carry") in Latin and Italian , lieben ("[to] love") in German , читать ( chitat' , "[to] read") in Russian , etc. However, some languages have no infinitive forms. Many Native American languages , Arabic , Asian languages such as Japanese , and some languages in Africa and Australia do not have direct equivalents to infinitives or verbal nouns . Instead, they use finite verb forms in ordinary clauses or various special constructions. Being

10413-691: The infinitive typically ending in, for example, -ć (sometimes -c ) in Polish , -ť in Slovak , -t (formerly -ti ) in Czech and Latvian (with a handful ending in -s on the latter), -ty (-ти) in Ukrainian , -ць ( -ts' ) in Belarusian . Lithuanian infinitives end in - ti , Serbo-Croatian in - ti or - ći, and Slovenian in - ti or - či. Serbian officially retains infinitives - ti or - ći , but

10530-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as

10647-531: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English

10764-475: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of

10881-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as

10998-961: The only Indo-European languages that allow infinitives to take person and number endings. This helps to make infinitive clauses very common in these languages; for example, the English finite clause in order that you/she/we have... would be translated to Portuguese like para ter es /ela ter/ter mos ... (Portuguese is a null-subject language ). The Portuguese personal infinitive has no proper tenses, only aspects (imperfect and perfect), but tenses can be expressed using periphrastic structures. For instance, "even though you sing/have sung/are going to sing" could be translated to "apesar de cantares/teres cantado/ires cantar" . Other Romance languages (including Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, and some Italian dialects) allow uninflected infinitives to combine with overt nominative subjects. For example, Spanish al abrir yo los ojos ("when I opened my eyes") or sin yo saberlo ("without my knowing about it"). In Ancient Greek

11115-475: The past tense and/or past participle, like in the case of put .) Certain auxiliary verbs are modal verbs (such as can , must , etc., which defective verbs lacking an infinitive form or any truly inflected non-finite form) are complemented by a bare infinitive verb. periphrastic items, such as (1) had better or ought to as substitutes for should, (2) used to as a substitute for did , and (3) (to) be able to for can , are similarly complemented by

11232-543: The plain infinitive): Further constructions can be made with other auxiliary-like expressions, like (to) be going to eat or (to) be about to eat , which have future meaning. For more examples of the above types of construction, see Uses of English verb forms § Perfect and progressive non-finite constructions . Perfect infinitives are also found in other European languages that have perfect forms with auxiliaries similarly to English. For example, avoir mangé means "(to) have eaten" in French. The term "infinitive"

11349-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it

11466-678: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from

11583-468: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout

11700-443: The so-called first infinitive, the strong form of the root (without consonant gradation or epenthetic 'e') is used, and these changes occur: As such, it is inconvenient for dictionary use, because the imperative would be closer to the root word. Nevertheless, dictionaries use the first infinitive. There are also four other infinitives, plus a "long" form of the first: Note that all of these must change to reflect vowel harmony, so

11817-483: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to

11934-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and

12051-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into

12168-523: The subject ( video Socratem currere , "I see Socrates running"). See Latin conjugation § Infinitives . Romance languages inherited from Latin the possibility of an overt expression of the subject (as in Italian vedo Socrate correre ). Moreover, the " inflected infinitive " (or "personal infinitive") found in Portuguese and Galician inflects for person and number. These, alongside Sardinian, are

12285-439: The subjunctive mood). However, "I want to come" is simply Je veux venir , using the infinitive, just as in English. In Russian, sentences such as "I want you to leave" do not use an infinitive. Rather, they use the conjunction чтобы "in order to/so that" with the past tense form (most probably remnant of subjunctive) of the verb: Я хочу, чтобы вы ушли (literally, "I want so that you left"). English language English

12402-546: The suffix -ναι instead, e.g., διδό-ναι . In the middle and passive, the present middle infinitive ending is -σθαι , e.g., δίδο-σθαι and most tenses of thematic verbs add an additional -ε- between the ending and the stem, e.g., παιδεύ-ε-σθαι . The infinitive per se does not exist in Modern Greek. To see this, consider the ancient Greek ἐθέλω γράφειν “I want to write”. In modern Greek this becomes θέλω να γράψω “I want that I write”. In modern Greek,

12519-476: The transitive infinitive: ihaho 'to see it/him/her/them' (root -aho ), and ihacta 'to look at it/him/her/them' (root -oocta ). In languages without an infinitive, the infinitive is translated either as a that -clause or as a verbal noun . For example, in Literary Arabic the sentence "I want to write a book" is translated as either urīdu an aktuba kitāban (lit. "I want that I write a book", with

12636-487: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Independent clause In traditional grammar, an independent clause (or main clause )

12753-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during

12870-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by

12987-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,

13104-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with

13221-445: Was -an , with verbs derived from other words ending in -jan or -janan . In German it is -en ("sagen"), with -eln or -ern endings on a few words based on -l or -r roots ("segeln", "ändern"). The use of zu with infinitives is similar to English to , but is less frequent than in English. German infinitives can form nouns, often expressing abstractions of the action, in which case they are of neuter gender: das Essen means

13338-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century

13455-518: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in

13572-505: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by

13689-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English

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