ABSTRACT
Taking into account the notion of support, the most satisfactory definition that can be given of the English bare infinitive in the present state of knowledge is therefore as follows. The bare infinitive is a non-finite verb form that provides for the incidence of its event to a support through all the instants of time required to actualize the complete lexical content of this event. Since the intra-verbal support of the infinitive is a general virtual person, the speaker must also conceive the actual support to which the infinitive's event is incident and the relation in time between the virtual and actual persons whenever he wants to use this verb form. As for to in its use with the infinitive, it signifies a relation between two spatial entities in time, the non-ordinalized general person incorporated in the infinitive and the often-ordinalized extra-verbal person of which the infinitive is predicated in a particular use.
