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In Romanian, both short and long-form infinitives exist; the so-called "long infinitives" end in -are, -ere, -ire and in modern speech are used exclusively as verbal nouns, while there are a few verbs that cannot be converted into the nominal long infinitive. [3]
An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (wherein sacking is a gerund form of the verb sack). A verbal noun, as a type of nonfinite verb form, is a term that some grammarians still use when referring to gerunds, gerundives, supines, and nominal forms of infinitives.
The basic form of the verb (be, write, play) is used as the infinitive, although there is also a "to-infinitive" (to be, to write, to play) used in many syntactical constructions. There are also infinitives corresponding to other aspects: (to) have written , (to) be writing , (to) have been writing .
It is similar in meaning to an English '-ing participle' or gerund, although it is often translated as a 'to-infinitive'. See the article on verbal nouns for the term more generally used in grammatical descriptions. It is the verb form which functions as a noun, naming an "action or state without reference to who does it or when".
English has analogous types of verbal nouns (truly verbal kinds — gerunds and infinitives — and deverbal nouns). Deverbal nouns may also be used attributively, as noun adjuncts, as in a swimming competition. For more details of the usage of some of the above verb forms, see Uses of non-finite verbs in English.
infinitive used Accusative: Object: no example: infinitive used Accusative: After preposition: canes alere ad venandum [5] 'to rear dogs for hunting' after ad, in, ob and occasionally other prepositions Genitive: Modifying abstract noun: pugnandi tempus 'time for (lit. of) fighting' nouns include occasio, tempus, causa, gratia: Dative ...
Sē here is an accusative reflexive pronoun referring back to the subject of the main verb i.e. Iūlia ; esse is the infinitive "to be." Note that the tense of the infinitive, translated into English, is relative to the tense of the main verb. Present infinitives, also called contemporaneous infinitives, occur at the time of the main verb.
English infinitives appear in verb catenae if they are introduced by an auxiliary verb or by a certain limited class of main verbs. They are also often introduced by a main verb followed by the particle to (as illustrated in the examples below). Further, infinitives introduced by to can function as noun phrases or even as modifiers of nouns ...