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In grammar, accusative and infinitive (also Accusativus cum infinitivo or accusative plus infinitive, frequently abbreviated ACI or A+I) is the name for a syntactic construction first described in Latin and Greek, also found in various forms in other languages such as English and Dutch. [1]
The 'active infinitive' mode is often realised by a simple accusative future participle. The 'passive infinitive' mode can be realised by the ' īrī infinitive' paradigm of the perfect periphrasis, but this option is comparatively rare. [3] There are three additional future infinitive periphrases for both active and passive/deponent verbs.
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
A prepositional phrase in Latin is made up of a preposition followed by a noun phrase in the accusative or ablative case. The preposition determines the case that is used, with some prepositions allowing different cases depending on the meaning.
The most common type of indirect speech is indirect statement, for which in classical Latin (although not in medieval Latin) the usual grammatical form is the accusative and infinitive construction. In this the subject of the quoted sentence is put into the accusative case , and the verb is changed to an infinitive.
The future active infinitive must agree with what it is describing in number, gender, and case (nominative or accusative). Esse has two future infinitives: futurus esse and fore; The future passive infinitive uses the supine with the auxiliary verb īrī. Because the first part is a supine, the ending -um does not change for gender or number.
Indirect commands are made with two constructions: either ut (or nē) with the present or imperfect subjunctive, or the accusative and infinitive construction, using the present infinitive. The latter construction is used especially when the main verb is iubeō 'I order' or vetō 'I forbid', but also sometimes after imperō 'I command': [ 184 ]
Infinitive phrases often have an implied grammatical subject making them effectively clauses rather than phrases. Such infinitive clauses or infinitival clauses, are one of several kinds of non-finite clause. They can play various grammatical roles like a constituent of a larger clause or sentence; for example it may form a noun phrase or ...