ABSTRACT
The theory supported here to explain the origin of the Portuguese inflected infinitive holds that the inflected infinitive developed from the Latin imperfect subjunctive, and provides as evidence the phonological and syntactic similarities between the two paradigms, the survival of the imperfect subjunctive in Vulgar Latin and in early Romance, and the existence of an inflected infinitive in several other varieties of Romance, namely Galician, Mirandese, Old Leonese, Old Neapolitan, and Sardinian. This chapter studies the distribution of the inflected infinitive in Sardinian, Old Neapolitan, Old Leonese, and Mirandese and examines the creation of other inflected non-finite forms-gerunds, present participles, and past participles-in Galician, Old Neapolitan, and some European Portuguese dialects.
