Functional peculiarities of infinitive in the modern English language

Abstract

The article deals with the investigation of functional peculiarities of the infinitive in the modern English language. The study reveals that the grammatical categories of the infinitive are: correlation, aspect and voice. It was studied that in the English sentence the infinitive can perform different functions. Mainly the infinitive can be used as: the subject, the predicate of different types, the object, the attribute, the adverbial modifiers of different types and parenthesis. It was found out that the most frequently the infinitive is used in the function of the predicate of different types, namely as: the simple verbal predicate, the compound verbal modal predicate, the compound verbal phasal predicate. The second function of the infinitive for frequency of usage is the object; the third function goes to the adverbial modifiers of different types: purpose, comparison and consequence. On the fourth place for frequency of usage is the infinitive in the function of the attribute and the least frequently used function of the infinitive is the subject. The examples of the infinitive in the function of parenthesis in the novel were not found.