| 词组 | split infinitive |
| 释义 | split infinitive Split infinitive is the name given to a syntactical construction in which an adverbial modifier comes between to and the infinitive itself. The term is first attested in 1897, when the construction had already been under discussion for about half a century. It is quite possible that the enduring popularity of the split infinitive as a subject is due to its catchy name. Even Ambrose Bierce thought so: • Condemnation of the split infinitive is now pretty general, but it is only recently that any one seems to have thought of it. Our forefathers and we elder writers of this generation used it freely and without shame—perhaps because it had not a name, and our crime could not be pointed out without too much explanation —Bierce 1909 But the term is actually a misnomer, as to is only an appurtenance of the infinitive, which is the uninfected form of the verb. In many constructions the infinitive is used alone or with some other word such as and preceding it. Native speakers do not really split infinitives, unless it is in the slangy construction in which an expletive is infixed between the syllables of a word, as in "He said to re(expletive)invent the wheel if we have to." The traditional split infinitive is most fully treated in Curme 1931. Curme summarizes earlier investigations of the construction, such as an article by Fitzedward Hall in The American Journal of Philology in 1893 and a long discussion in Lounsbury 1908. Fitzedward Hall dated the construction back to the 14th century in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and provided examples from each succeeding century. Lounsbury added more, and J. L. Hall 1917 still more. Curme reprints many of these along with a number from his own collection of 20th-century examples. It might not be amiss to add here further and more recent 20th-century evidence. • In a quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken —James Stephens, The Crock of Gold, 1912 • But I would come back to where it pleased me to live; to really live —Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, 1935 • ... feels itself competent to fruitfully reformulate the basic problems of man —Paul Radin, Kenyon Rev., Summer 1949 • ... floor-sweepers were too easily replaced to ever form into such a craft union —Howard Fast, in The Aspirin Age 1919-1941, ed. Isabel Leighton, 1949 • And then when the time came to really bury the silver, it was too late —The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, 1950 • ... I got a brief note from [Harold] Ross splitting an infinitive as follows: "Tell Sayre to damn well and soon return those proofs." —James Thurber, letter, 13 Dec. 1950 • Our moral incapacity to satisfactorily cope with the complex problems —E. M. Adams, Jour, of Philosophy, 13 Sept. 1951 • But the primary objective of the sisters was to somehow propel their sons into the Presbyterian ministry —St. Clair McKelway, New Yorker, 18 May 1957 • Further to complicate matters and to cautiously avoid splitting an infinitive ... —John O'Hara, letter, 7 June 1958 • But how to actually move children or adolescents toward this goal —Barnard 1979 • ... the government's ability to meet its promises to simultaneously cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget —Kenneth H. Bacon, Wall Street Jour., 5 Feb. 1981 • Many of the out-of-towners who came for the event apparently felt that there was no time like the present to really dress —John Duka, N. Y. Times, 27 Sept. 1983 • Yet here it works, serving to metaphorically foreshadow Edgar's eventual deliverance —Tom Dow-ling, San Francisco Examiner, 19 Nov. 1985 We will not attempt to summarize all of Curme's discussion here, but one important point—often mentioned as well by other commentators—can be conveniently shown by illustration: • ... the authorities would be required correctly to anticipate their requirements for at least ten days ahead —W. Manning Dacey, The British Banking Mechanism, 1951 In the sequence "required correctly to anticipate" the adverb correctly can be construed as modifying either required or to anticipate. In spoken English there would be no ambiguity, and if the author had certainly intended correctly to mean "as they should be" he could have made that clear by setting the adverb off with commas. But as it appears on the printed page, there is just a slight opportunity for doubt. The sequence "required to correctly anticipate" would remove that doubt, without changing the intended meaning of the sentence. The adverb can also be placed after anticipate, but doing this would have the effect of emphasizing the adverb rather than the verb. Had the author intended correctly to be the focus, he probably would have written "required to anticipate their requirements correctly." Some commentators have advised routinely repairing split infinitives by placing the adverb after the infinitive, but note that this has the effect of altering the emphasis of the sentence. There has always been a question about how frequently the split infinitive construction occurs. Hall 1917 found it used by many authors but only occasionally. He found the construction common only in Browning. Curme, however, says flatly that the construction is common—he seems to have collected more evidence than anyone else—and shows it to be frequent in Mark Twain, Thomas Hardy, and Rudyard Kipling as well as Browning. The one thing we know for certain about the frequency of the split infinitive is that it noticeably increased in the 19th century. Although Lounsbury said he had seen the construction mentioned in a few late 18th-century reviews, he gave no particulars, and no one else has found a mention of the construction before 1840 or 1850. The first of our commentators to mention it is Alford 1866, who was shocked to discover that such a construction existed. It was subsequently condemned by several of his contemporaries, including Bache 1869 and Hodgson 1889. Sometime between Alford's book and the end of the century, the split infinitive seems to have established itself in that subculture of usage existing in the popular press and in folk belief. Almost every commentator from the turn of the century on, in the course of giving a more measured opinion, has said that the split infinitive is roundly condemned by grammarians, or, sometimes, by purists. Its firm establishment in the popular mind was illustrated by Lounsbury from a biography written by Andrew Lang and published in 1890. In the, book Lang recounts an incident from the negotiations between the United States and Great Britain over a treaty settling the Alabama claims and other matters. Instructions to the British negotiators from the government in London permitted them to make concessions on such matters as fishing rights and reparations, but enjoined them under no circumstances to accept an adverb between to and the infinitive in the treaty. Lang approved the intransigence. Lounsbury quoted another piece by Lang in which he facetiously suggests that anyone who aspires to be a bad writer should split as many infinitives as possible. Doing that probably would produce bad writing, as the evidence shows that the split infinitive is not a construction that is in constant demand. The consensus in the 20th century, however, seems to be that awkward avoidance of the split infinitive has produced more bad writing than use of it. Critical opinion as expressed in usage books appears to have settled on a wary compromise. The commentators recognize that there is nothing grammatically wrong with the split infinitive, but they are loath to abandon a subject that is so dear to the public at large. Therefore, they tell us to avoid split infinitives except when splitting one improves clarity. Since improved clarity is very often the purpose and result of using a split infinitive, the advice does not amount to much. The upshot is that you can split them when you need to. To repeat, the objection to the split infinitive has never had a rational basis. The original cause for complaint was probably awareness of a relatively sudden marked increase in use of the construction, perhaps combined with the knowledge that in those more elegant languages, Latin and Greek, the infinitive is never split—because it is a single word distinguished by its ending rather than by an introductory particle. Even though it goes back to the 14th century, the split infinitive was relatively rare until the 19th. The reason for the increase in split infinitives, Curme tells us, is simply the increase in the number of sentences with clauses (as Curme calls them) introduced by to-infinitives. One word of warning. In some sentences—particularly ones where the infinitive comes after a copula and particularly ones with a negative like never or not—the infinitive is customarily not split. Here are two examples: • Molee's quest for a perfect replacement for English seems never to have ended —Baron 1982 • ... human qualities that even the most zealous military officer must possess if he is effectively to command men —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, 1982 From these two examples you might reasonably conclude that such placement does give some emphasis to the adverb. The split infinitive, as several commentators remark, seems never to have been common in the speech of the less educated. Its use is pretty much confined to users of standard English and to literary contexts. |
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