On 11/02/2011 20:45, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
psnip]
>
> Didn't one stage of Greek have a "perfective (aorist) infinitive"?

..and a lot more besides! It could have up to 11 different 
infinitives. I use the verb λύω (luō) "I loosen", which is 
the typical 'example verb' given in grammars. I also 
apologize to philhellenists on the list - for the sake of 
the many, I write the infinitives in Roman letters.

1. luein = ('present') imperfective active
2. luesthai - imperfective medio-passive
3. lusein - future active
4. lusesthai - future middle
5. luthēsesthai - future passive
6. lusai - ('aorist') perfective active
7. lusasthai - perfective middle
8. luthēnai - perfective passive
9. lelukenai - prefect active
10. lelusthai - perfect medio-passive
11. lelusesthai - future-perfect medio-passive

[snip]
>
> Ray, I think a couple of other Romance languages may have "personal
> infinitives", as other resonders have mentioned; unless I misunderstood them.
> Isn't that what somebody said about Sardinian? and/or Galician?

I wondered about Galician, as it is closely related to 
Portuguese - but so far I can find no reference to the 
'personal infinitive' (that doesn't, of course, mean to say 
that it doesn't occur).  If a similar feature exists in 
Sardinian, it must be a separate development in that 
language; but I have no information on it.
--------------------------------------------------

On 11/02/2011 21:02, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
 > On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:18:40 +0000, R A Brown
 > <[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
 >
 >> Unless senility really has set in, I am sure it was not
 >> so very long ago that there was a thread on this list
 >> discussing infinitives and gerunds.  IMO it would be
 >> worth looking back at that.
 >
 > Could you mean the thread that begins with Subject:
 > Missing infinitive From: Gary Shannon<[log in to unmask]>
 > Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:10:07 -0800 "Is the infinitive
 > something a language MUST have? "

Yep - that's the one!

The answer, of course, is "No, languages do not have to have 
any infinitive; many do not."  TAKE doesn't have an 
infinitive   ;)

[snip]
 >
 > Six posts in that thread mention "gerund".

Yes, IIRC someone suggested that instead of an infinitive, 
one could have a gerund.  But if a language has a verbal 
noun (i.e. a noun which retains some verbal functions) then 
IMO that is an infinitive.

The term 'gerund' is not standard across languages and is 
normally applied to some other verbal noun, if a language 
has a different type from its infinitive, or to a verbal 
adverb. But, as I say, the term is _not_ standard across 
languages and if a conlang has a 'gerund' it needs to be 
defined what is meant by it.

FWIW although ancient Greek had up to 11 different 
infinitives, it had no gerund!

-- 
Ray
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