infinitives Archives - Character Ink

day 69: infinitive and prepositional phrase quiz—answer key!

Donna — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:11:00 +0000

Beside each of the phrases provided, write an I if each is an
infinitive; write PP if it is a prepositional phrase.

1. to go I

2. to sing I

3. to the government PP

4. to a boy PP

5. to walk I

6. to be I

7. to see I

8. to France PP

9. to John Adams PP

10. to crush I

11. to believe I

12. to his belief PP

13. to write I

14. to the sun PP

15. to confess I

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day 64: infinitive and prepositional phrase quiz

Donna — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:51:00 +0000

Beside each of the phrases provided, write an I if each is an infinitive; write PP if it is a prepositional phrase.

1. to go

2. to sing

3. to the government

4. to a boy

5. to walk

6. to be

7. to see

8. to France

9. to John Adams

10. to crush

11. to believe

12. to his belief

13. to write

14. to the sun

15. to confess

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Day 63: Infinitives part ii of ii

Donna — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Infinitives continued…

They are easily confused with prepositional phrases containing the preposition to. If students learn early on when to is being used as part of an infinitive (when it is with any verb) and when it is used as a prepositional phrase (when it has an object following it), they will become better writers (for many reasons we will discuss later).

Infinitive: He wanted to run.
Prepositional phrases: They went to town.

3. Infinitives are easy to recognize
because they always are to + verb.
Examples:

a. to think

b. to be

c. to show

3. To can also be a preposition (a word
that shows position). To know if the to is an infinitive or a preposition,
follow these rules:

a. Look at the word following the to.

b. If the word following to is a verb, you know
it is an infinitive. For
example: to know

c. If the word following the to is anything else
(noun, pronoun, adjective, etc.), it is a prepositional phrase. For
example: to the house

4. Any verb can be an infinitive. It just has
to have a to in front of it.

5. The to is part of the infinitive. For
example: in the case of to see, the complete verb is to see, not just see.

Tomorrow: Infinitive “pop” quiz…can you tell the difference between an infinitive and a preposition with to? J

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day 61: infinitives part i of ii

Donna — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Earlier I said that we teach two main categories of verbs—action and Be a Helper, Link verbs (BHL verbs).

There is another “category” of verbs that you should learn, however. That is the group of verbs (also used as other parts of speech) known as the infinitive.

We teach infinitives as verbs (and early on) for a couple of reasons:

While they might act like other parts of speech (i.e. modifying, being the sentence’s main subject, etc.) at times, more often than not, they act like verbs.

They can describe what a subject is doing: The girl decided to write the letter.
They can have BHL verbs with them: She had to take her medicine.
They can have adverbs with them (when they are comprised of action verbs): She wanted to write beautifully.
They can have direct objects with them (when they are comprised of action verbs): The girl wanted to eat chocolates.
They can have predicate adjectives with them (when they are comprised of BHL verbs): She wanted to be careful.

They can have predicate nominatives with them (when they are comprised of BHL verbs): She wanted to be an actress.

Tomorrow—more on infinitives.

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