It would seem what simple thing! But this one too linguistic phenomenon has its own characteristics and even “pitfalls”, about which we'll talk later in this article.
Brief description of the infinitive in Russian
An infinitive verb is what we see written in a dictionary entry. It has no mood, person, number, time, that is, it is not changed depending on who performs the action, since there is simply no such subject. However, such a verb still has some characteristics - aspect (perfect or imperfect) and conjugation (first or second). In addition, it is characterized by recurrence or irrevocability, as well as transitivity or intransitivity.
How to understand that a verb is in the infinitive
To determine what this form the word denoting action is actually an infinitive, you need to ask questions about the infinitive form of the verb. These include: " what to do?" (for example, "read" or "talk") or " what to do?” (for example, “give as a gift” or “drink”). If the verb answers them, then it is in the initial form.
In addition, there are always suffixes: -t-, -ti-, -who-, -est- and -sti-. It is worth noting that some linguists argue that these are the endings of indefinite verbs, since this morpheme is subject to change. However, the controversy still does not subside.
What is the indefinite form of the verb used for?
The Russian language is quite rich in various possibilities for using the infinitive. The indefinite form of a verb can be the subject, predicate, modifier, object, and also be integral part verb predicate, express imperative mood or future tense. Next, we will take a closer look at each of the listed cases using examples.
Specific syntactic roles of the verb in the initial form
So, a verb in an indefinite form is a subject if it is characterized in any way. For example:
- Drawing was the meaning of his life.
- Being a mother is the meaning of Svetlana’s life.
In these sentences " paint" And " to be (mother)"are subject because they are separate, independent actions.
In addition, a sentence can contain two infinitives, one of which characterizes the other:
- To live is to love.
Then here " live" is the subject, and " be in love" - predicate. In this case, the member of the sentence is easily determined: the subject comes before the predicate. Also instead of " Means" there may be a dash or the words “ this", "is"and the like.
An infinitive can be a modifier if it stands in this form, for example:
- He went to bed with a firm decision to read a book tomorrow.
It turns out that the verb “read” here answers the question “in what way?” With what decision did he go to bed? Read (a book tomorrow). That is, an indefinite verb is a definition if it refers to a noun that means necessity, decision, desire, expression of will, and the like.
The indefinite form of a verb can also be an object if, for example, it is used in the following phrase:
- Dad asked Lena to pick up her pencil.
That is, the verb “asked” has a full meaning here. lexical meaning. Both verbs refer to different people (« asked" - to dad, and " raise" - to Lena).
The infinitive is an integral part of the verbal predicate if it is used with a verb that denotes the beginning, continuation or completion of an action, that is, it has an auxiliary meaning. For example:
- The puppy quickly began to fall asleep.
- The teacher continued teaching the lesson.
"Began" And " continued" are precisely such verbs, therefore " fall asleep" And " lead" will be parts of the predicate.
The infinitive expresses the imperative mood if used in a commanding tone. For example, a squad leader may order: “ Be silent!", and the captain of the ship shouted: " All hands on deck!»
The initial form of the verb expresses the future tense in sentences like this:
- Yes, Ivan should not be a pilot!
That is, it should contain some shade of annoyance or regret.
Common spelling mistakes
Most of the time, the indefinite verb is an easy thing to spell, but sometimes people still get confused. This happens when the verb is reflexive. Simply forgotten soft sign before the suffix - Xia-, so it turns out that the verb is in the third person and singular. And sometimes this makes it very difficult to understand when reading.
In order to avoid mistakes and write suffixes (or endings of indefinite verbs) correctly, you need to mentally ask them questions each time: “h what to do?" or "h what to do?“If the verb clearly answers them, you need to put a soft sign. For example, in last word in a sentence " Petya is going to get some sleep today." a soft sign is given, since Peter going what to do? Get some sleep.
Thus, the indefinite verb is quite an interesting and an important part language that can be used in different cases, the main thing is to master them well.
Verbs in the indefinite form and in the third person singular and plural are pronounced the same. How to determine which of these words is a verb in the indefinite form? And it is important to do this in order to write a word without spelling error. This nfr-t is necessary to correctly execute the syntax and morphological analysis words.
Instructions
You can determine the infinitive by the question. Find a verb and ask a question about it. If this is a verb in an indefinite form, then it will answer the question “what to do?”, “what to do?”. For example, throw, grow, bake, flood, dilute, lie down.
A soft sign is always written at the end of such verbs.
From verbs in personal form, especially if there is a reflexive suffix “-sya”, “-sya”. To do this, ask a question to the word. If the verb answers the question “what to do?”, “What to do?”, then it is an indefinite form. And if the question “what does it do?”, “what will it do?” - third person singular.
This problem (what does it do?) can be solved simply. - It’s not easy to decide on this action (what to do?).
Look at the spelling of this word. If a word is written with a soft sign (-tsya), then it is an infinitive. And if without a soft sign, then it is a verb in the third person singular or plural.
It is difficult to distinguish the infinitive from personal form, if the word is written in transcription. The recording of the finals of these forms is the same: [student] (study) - [student] (study). In this case, pay attention to the stress, the vowel before [-tsa] or the context where you can ask the question. If this work is not feasible, then both forms are appropriate.
The indefinite form of the verb is included in the compound nominal predicate. In this case, the sentence contains two heterogeneous verbs. To determine which one is the infinitive, you need to indicate grammatical basis. The predicate will consist of two verbs. The one that contains the lexical meaning is the infinitive; a soft sign must be written in it. So, in the sentence “Students will be able to study extra,” the predicate “will be able to study.” And the indefinite form is “to work out.”
The infinitive form of a verb can act as minor members offers. It can be determined in such cases by following the logic of reasoning. Ask a question oblique case from predicate to infinitive. If this is possible, then in this case he is an addition. For example, in the sentence “The coach told us to do some warm-up,” the word “to do” will be an object (ordered what?). In this case, think like this: the action indicated in the verb “commanded” is performed by the trainer, and others will perform it. This means that this is not a predicate, because the sentence is simple.
Circumstances expressed in the indefinite form of the verb most often answer the questions “for what purpose?”, “for what reason?”. In the sentence “I came to gym to train” to the infinitive we ask the question “came for what purpose?”
For the definition, ask a question from the noun. In the sentence “I am fluent in playing the guitar,” the infinitive is the definition: the ability (what?) to play.
Adj., used. compare often Morphology: indefinite, indefinite, indefinite, more indefinite; uncertain; adv. vague 1. Vague is something you do not understand or understand poorly because it is not entirely clear or precise... ... Dictionary Dmitrieva
Undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined, undefined,... ... Forms of words
UNDETERMINED, oh, oh; Nen, nna. 1. Not exactly established. In an uncertain direction. 2. Not quite distinct; imprecise, unclear. N. color. N. answer. Vague promises (evasive). Indefinite mood or indefinite form... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
uncertain- indefinite, brief. f. uncertain, uncertain, uncertain, uncertain... Dictionary of difficulties of pronunciation and stress in modern Russian language
uncertain- uncertain; briefly form yonen, yonna, adj. (not precisely established; indistinct, unclear, vague) and uncertain (linguistic, mathematical) ... Russian spelling dictionary
Undefined, yonen, yonna, yonno, yonny; compare art. her … Russian word stress
uncertain- *indefinite, but only strictly linguistic, mathematics. terms... Together. Apart. Hyphenated.
uncertain- indefinable, unaccountable – Topics Oil and gas industry Synonyms indefinable, uncountable EN undeterminable ... Technical Translator's Guide
uncertain- oh, oh; flax and flax, flax, flax. see also uncertain 1) Not precisely established. Indefinite term. No quantity. Move a new distance. A person of uncertain occupation. Walking in an uncertain direction... Dictionary of many expressions
Books
- Mathematical analysis for economists. Workshop. Tutorial. Grif Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Demina T.I.. Tutorial contains theoretical and practical material in the following sections mathematical analysis: sets, complex numbers, number sequences, functions of one...
- List of birds of the Russian Federation, Evgeniy Koblik. List of birds Russian Federation, prepared by the Initiative Group at the Menzbier Ornithological Society, includes all species and subspecies of birds reliably recorded to date...
Proficiency in any language is unthinkable without knowledge of the basic units of speech. No less important are grammar rules, which allow all parts of speech to be harmoniously connected with each other using cases, prepositions, and conjugations. Russian is a predicative language; it often uses categories of action or verb constructions. When becoming familiar with this part of speech, students will learn how it is formed and what the infinitive form of a verb is.
In the textbook for grade 4, when children are introduced to this concept, a rule is given.
The infinitive form of a verb is the initial and immutable form, from which all verbal parts of speech (participles, verbal adjectives) and verb forms formed during conjugation.
What questions does the indefinite form answer: what to do? (what to do?).
The indefinite form is called in linguistics by the term “infinitive” (from the Latin Infinitus). Based on the infinitive, it is impossible to say who and when performs any action (for example, “to walk”: it is not clear who did it and when, there is no indication of either the number or the time). Its morphological features are the suffixes –ть(-ти) (for example, id you, say t) or ending the root with -ch (for example, le whose, se whose).
Peculiarities
The indefinite form of the verb does not change. This is the peculiarity of the infinitive, so it cannot be conjugated or otherwise changed.
The initial form of a verb can only have constant features:
- Conjugation (1st, 2nd, different conjugations).
- Refundability (refundable, non-refundable).
- Transitivity (transitive or intransitive).
- Kind (imperfect or perfect).
The infinitive is devoid of signs of person, time or number, so it is impossible to tell from it who and when performs the action.
How to find the infinitive
For those learning Russian as a foreign language or for children who do not read enough, the issue of finding an infinitive can present some difficulties. How to find indefinite form verb.
Those who know Russian at the native level, as a rule, do not experience any particular difficulties with this. How to put a verb into an indefinite form: mentally ask infinitive questions - “what to do?” or “what should I do?”
The infinitive can also be defined in another way:
- Find out what form the verb in the sentence belongs to.
- “Cut off” the personal endings that appear during conjugation, and (if necessary) the past tense suffix -l-.
- Substitute the infinitive suffix –ть(-ти) to the remaining part or simply ask the appropriate question.
Let's look at the following example: “They carefully wrote down the letters in the notebook.” The initial form in this case will be “prescribe”.
How we defined it:
- We ask the question: They (what did they do?) prescribed.
- The question “what did you do?” indicates that the verb imperfect form(without the prefix “s”), which means that to determine the infinitive you also need to ask without the prefix “s”: “what to do?”
- Removing the ending -And and past tense suffix -l-. We have: prescribing-.
- We substitute the infinitive suffix -t to the rest of the word: (what to do?) – to register.
Please note that in this case you can make a mistake and say “register” as the answer; this will be incorrect, since “register” answers the question “what to do?”, that is, it is in the perfect form.
Important! When determining the initial form, you need to pose a question to the verb in the sentence itself in order to determine its type.
A hint on how not to make a mistake when determining the (imperfect) form: the infinitive retains all prefixes and suffixes (with the exception of the past tense suffix -l-) of the form of the verb with which you work in the text.
Note! In the process of searching for N.F. you can go two ways: ask the question - “what to do?” or “what to do?”, or follow the above method.
Syntax function
What is the role of the indefinite form of the verb in a sentence. It can perform various syntactic functions. Free information about the possible members of the sentence, expressed by the infinitive, is given in the table:
The infinitive almost never occurs as an object. However, in the sentence “He ordered to serve coffee,” “to serve” can be interpreted as an addition (ordered about what?).
Definition online
If you find it difficult to determine on your own initial form or are not sure that you did it correctly, you can check yourself using online services for.
Since the definition of the infinitive is its mandatory part, you can go to any Internet page that offers this service and enter required verb in the form in which it is used in the sentence.
The first word that will be indicated will be N.f. verb..
Let us note that, in general, the ability to identify parts of speech and change them by persons, numbers, and tenses largely depends on innate literacy and linguistic flair. But even if this is not all right, learning which questions the indefinite form answers is not that difficult. Otherwise, you should adhere to the above schemes and tips.
To consolidate (or form) knowledge on the specified topic A number of tasks and exercises can be recommended:
- Distinguishing parts of speech with similar endings (put the cast iron in the oven (noun) - bake pies (v.), Sing, come here! (proper noun) - sing songs (v.)).
- Converting an imperfective verb into a perfective form and back.
- Formation of a verb from a noun (for example, travel - to travel, food - to eat, trip - to travel).
With practice the necessary skills will come.
Useful video: Indefinite verb form
The infinitive is initial value verb. The peculiarity of the infinitive is that it denotes only a pure action, not tied to the person who performs it, does not indicate whether one or more persons perform the action, and also does not give the concept of the time the action was performed. That is, the infinitive does not have a definite past, present or future tense.
This part of speech is also called the “indefinite form of the verb” because it does not characterize any details of the action being performed, revealing only its original meaning. Latin word infintus, from which this term is derived, can be translated as "uncertain".
Indefinite verb form: rules and examples
The infinitive can only answer questions:
- "What to do?";
- "What to do?".
It is impossible, for example, to ask "Doing what?""What is he doing?",“What are we doing?”"What are they doing?""What you are doing?",“What did you do?”"What will you do?", since the infinitive is the infinitive form of the verb. The time and person remain unclear, and no reference is given to the details of what happened.
Infinitive suffixes
The infinitive ends with word-forming suffixes:
- -t - give birth, grow up, die;
- -whose, - to protect, burn, whip;
- -ti - carry, grow, row.
It can also be supplemented with a postfix -sya (-sya), by which we can judge which indefinite form of the verb is non-reflexive and which is reflexive:
-sya (-sya) - to toil, to pray, to beware.
Signs of the infinitive
The infinitive is a form of the verb that always remains the same. It cannot be conjugated or represented in another tense or person. Infinitives can only have constants verb features, which are present in any verbs, regardless of their form. Such characteristics include transitivity/intransitivity, recurrence/irrevocability, and perfection/imperfection.
Transitive and intransitive infinitives
The transitivity of a verb is determined in accordance with the presence of an additional word of an indefinite form of the verb, denoting an object or phenomenon to which the action is partially transferred. Intransitive verbs consist of one single word denoting the action itself. The transitive infinitive may include:
- nouns or pronouns placed in accusative without a preposition: give an injection, thread;
- nouns placed in the genitive case, without a preposition, which express a share of something, or participation: wait for trouble, pour water;
- nouns or pronouns placed in Genitive, in case the verb has a negative expression: not be able to, not notice them.
Thus, these words are part of the verb, filling it with meaning, and without them the essence of the action is lost. Part of the action, in turn, transfers to an object or circumstance, giving it a specific meaning.
Reflexive and irreversible infinitives
The infinitive form of a verb can also be reflexive or non-reflexive. Not reflexive verbs express an action performed by someone or something in relation to someone or something. Reflexives express an action directed by someone or something towards itself, or mean another closed interaction or state of an object and have a postfix at the end -sya (sya). On -xia The reflexive indefinite form of the verb usually ends. The rule states that reflexive verbs cannot be transitive.
Examples of irreversible infinitives: put on, lower, peek. Examples of reflexive infinitives: to dress, to lower oneself, to sneak.
As we see from the above examples, some reflexive verbs can be obtained from non-reflexive ones by simple addition postfix -xia(as in the case of a pair " lower-lower"). This only changes the direction of action, but the general meaning remains. IN in rare cases, according to the rules and norms for the use of verbs, it is impossible to use a verb in both of its word forms - perfect and imperfect, as, for example, the reflexive indefinite form of the verb is unacceptable for “put on” (example " put on - get dressed"). “Put on” denotes an action performed in relation to some object or person, while “dress” can be addressed exclusively to the object itself performing the action (it can be used in other word forms, but subject to the preservation of this return value). Despite the fact that such a limited in use indefinite form of the verb is not often found, the rule remains the rule. Also, from some imperfect forms of verbs, we will not be able to create a perfect one, based on their key meaning, which we can see in the example of the verb “peep” - you cannot peek for yourself. By the same principle, in Russian there is no imperfect form the verb "to sneak" is not allowed " sneak" anything.
Perfective and imperfective infinitives
Infinitives can also be perfective or imperfective. The indefinite form of the imperfective verb expresses actions that continue over time and do not have a specific connection - these are, as it were, eternal actions, and without additional instructions in the context it does not give us an idea of the completion or incompleteness of the action. A question would be appropriate here "What to do?". Examples:
Perfective infinitives indicate that the action has already been completed, or will certainly be committed, that the result has already happened, or will still happen (of course, in cases of negation or question, it can have a relatively vague connotation). A question would be appropriate here "What to do?". Examples:
- After reading the note, it was to be burned.
- Thank me that you didn't have to burn that note.
- Were you instructed to burn the note?
Only a small number of dual infinitives are found in the Russian language. The indefinite form of the verb, which simultaneously refers to perfect view, and to the imperfect, can be used either way, depending on the environment, without changing its word form. That is, she also answers the question "What to do?", and to the question "What to do?". Examples:
- An order was received to execute all traitors from now on. - "What to do?";
- An order was received to execute the traitor. - "What to do?";
- In the village they are used to getting girls married quickly. - "What to do?";
- By autumn, Marfa managed to marry all her girls. - "What to do?";
- It's hard to tell your heart. - "What to do?"
- How to tell your heart not to love? - "What to do?"
- Exploring caves is very interesting, but at the same time dangerous. - "What to do?"
- Tomorrow we will have to explore these caves. - "What to do?"
- You can attack them from any direction, while I will defeat them head-on. - "What to do?"
- You will have to attack them from the right, and I will come in from the flank. - "What to do?"
Conjugation of verbs
The conjugation of verbs reflects their change according to person and number. Although infinitives themselves cannot have person, number or gender, and, therefore, cannot be conjugated, they nevertheless serve as a word-forming basis for other verbs, therefore they are classified into one of two verb groups according to the type of conjugation - either I , or to II. Indefinite verb endings belonging to the first group: -e, -yu(except exception verbs). The forms of these verbs have endings -u and -yu, -eat and -eat, -et and -et, -eat and -eat, -eat and -ete. Indefinite verb endings belonging to the second group: -And and on -I(except exception verbs). When conjugated, the forms of these verbs have endings -u and -yu, -ish, -it, -im, -ite, -at and -yat.
Function of the infinitive in a sentence
Verbs, as usual, perform the function of a predicate in a sentence. Together with subjects, they form the grammatical basis of sentences. However, the infinitive, due to its peculiarities of use, can perform completely in a sentence different functions. Therefore, the role of any of the members of the sentence in this case can be played by the indefinite form of the verb. An example of using infinitives as various members offers:
Morphological analysis of the infinitive in a sentence
To carry out morphological analysis of a verb in a sentence, you need to determine its part of speech, general grammatical meaning, ask him questions, determine the word form, indicate constant and inconstant morphological characteristics, as well as its function in a sentence. Since the infinitive form of the verb does not change, the morphological analysis of the infinitive is carried out without indicating the inconstant verbal features.