ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the uses of the NoN-fiNite forms of the verb, i.e. the iNfiNitive and the preseNt and past participles, as shown in Table 11.1.
TABLE 11.1 Non-finite forms of the verb
Infinitive Present participle Past participle
kaufen singen wandern aufmachen bestellen
kaufend singend wandernd aufmachend bestellend
gekauft gesungen gewandert aufgemacht bestellt
As explained in 10.1.1e, these forms of the verb do not have endings to show agreement with the subject, or to express other categories of the verb such as tense and mood. They are used to form the compound tenses and the passive (see 10.3 and 10.4), and they occur in a number of constructions which depend on an element in a full clause with a nite verb. The various non-nite forms and their uses are treated in the following sections of this chapter:
• The forms of the infinitive (section 11.1)
• The uses of the infinitive with zu (section 11.2)
• The uses of the infinitive without zu – the ‘bare innitive’ (section 11.3)
• Innitives used as nouns (section 11.4)
• The uses of the present and past participles (section 11.5)
• Equivalents of the English ‘ing’-form in German (section 11.6)
(a) The simple infinitive is the basic form under which verbs are listed in dictionaries (see 10.1.1). For most verbs it ends in -en (e.g. kommen, machen, sehen), but a few verbs have an innitive ending in -n, i.e. sein, tun and verbs with a stem ending in -el and -er (see 10.2.1c)
(b) Compound infinitives The innitive of the auxiliaries haben, sein and werden can be combined with the past participle of a verb to form compound innitives:
perfect infinitive (with haben) perfect infinitive (with sein) werden-passive infinitive sein-passive infinitive perfect passive infinitive
gesehen haben angekommen sein verletzt werden verletzt sein verletzt worden sein
The perfect innitive is formed with haben or sein in accordance with the rules given in 10.3.2. For the use of sein or werden in the passive, see 13.2.2. The German perfect innitive is used to show that an action took place before the time of speaking, not unlike in English:
Sie muss das Buch lesen Sie muss das Buch gelesen haben
She must read the book She must have read the book
In some constructions in German, the infinitive is accompanied by the particle zu, whilst in others a so-called bare infinitive is used, without zu:
Ich riet ihr zum Arzt zu gehen Ich konnte nicht zum Arzt gehen
I advised her to go to the doctor I couldn’t go to the doctor
Constructions with zu (which are more frequent) are explained in section 11.2. Constructions with the bare innitive are treated in section 11.3.
