What are Infinitives?

Now that you have learned about Gerunds, you should have a much easier time understanding what infinitives are.

An infinitive is to plus the base form of a verb. Like gerunds, they take the place of nouns and act exactly like nouns.

  • to sleep
  • to meet
  • to go
  • to open

Constructing Infinitives

Let's briefly look at how infinitives are usually constructed in sentences. They follow the pattern verb + infinitive, or verb + object + infinitive depending on the sentence.

verb infinitive
He needs to go to work in the evening.

verb object infinitive
He asked one of the security members to open the classroom.

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Exercises

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