Infinitival forms

In this chapter an overview is presented of the main characteristics of infinitival verb forms. First of all, the infinitive is the form in which a verb is included in most dictionaries and word lists. Secondly, the infinitive form is built up by a verb stem plus a suffix and application of this suffix is required whenever the verb (plus its complements) is used as the object of some other verb, the main verb. Depending on the type of main verb, the infinitive behaves in some respects like a noun: it can take a case marker, but not a plural marker. Apart from its syntactic role as object, an uninflected infinitival verb form is used as subject or predicate.