As part of the introduction to the grammar guide The English Tenses, I explain important words that are required to understand English grammar – including participles and infinitives. The following is a full explanation of what we mean when we say the bare infinitive, and how you can commonly recognise and use it.
To understand what the infinitive form of a verb is, it is important to understand its root. The noun infinity, and the adjective infinite mean something that is never ending. The infinitive is also something that never ends, it always keeps its form. It is a verb form, preceded by the word to, which never changes, regardless of how it is used in a sentence.
- to read – I like to read. / He did not want to read.
- to buy – I am trying to buy a book. / She had been hoping to buy it too.
- to walk – We ought to walk in the hills.
To find the bare infinitive form, consider the following sentences:
- Do you like to walk on a sandy beach bare-footed?
- What is in a bare cupboard?
What is the meaning of bare? When you walk bare-footed, your feet are bare. Do they have socks on? Or shoes? No, they are bare. So what is in the bare cupboard? Like with the bare foot, it has nothing on it or in it. The cupboard is empty. So, what is a bare infinitive? The infinitive is still there, but it is bare. The bare infinitive is still an infinitive, without the word to.
- read
- buy
- walk
When the bare infinitive is used in a sentence, therefore, remember it is still an infinitive, it simply does not include the word to. So, like the infinitive, its form must never change.
It is important to understand this, because when a bare infinitive is used to form a tense, it is not affected by time or subject-verb agreement.
With the tenses, the bare infinitive is necessary when forming negative forms and questions for the past and present, using “do” auxiliariesand for future tenses which use will or going to.
- Do you want some wine?
- Did they go to the zoo?
- Will we be on time?
- Is he going to feel better soon?
“Do” Auxiliaries
The “do” auxiliary is a helping verb, used to create past and present tenses.
- Do
- Don’t
- Does
- Doesn’t
- Did
- Didn’t
The “do” auxiliary functions only to form a grammatical structure, indicating time and subject, and does not provide extra meaning. It should not be confused with the use of to do as a main verb (which means to complete or perform). Compare these two sentences:
- I did my homework.
- Did you do your homework?
The first sentence the main verb, did, means completed in the past, while in the second sentence uses did as an auxiliary, to create a question. In the second sentence, did forms the question and do refers to the action (completed). After the “do” auxiliary, the main verb becomes a bare infinitive.
In fact, the “do auxiliary” is always followed by a bare infinitive.
- Don’t be late!
- Do you want some tea?
- He didn’t eat meat.
As the verb following a “do” auxiliary is a bare infinitive, it never changes. He didn’t eat meat is in the past tense, but eat does not change. This may look like didn’t eat is a combination of the past and present – it is not. It’s a “do” auxiliary indicating the simple past + bare infinitive.
Understanding the bare infinitive is necessary for forming the tenses, and many other English grammar constructions. It will help you avoid incorrectly forming verbs that follow auxiliary verbs.
Modal Verbs
The pattern used for the “do” auxiliary is also used for the future simple construction, will + bare infinitive. The bare infinitive is therefore also useful for discussing future time.
Other modal verbs, and auxiliaries, also follow this construction, and require the bare infinitive, including can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, have to, ought to, and used to. While do and will are very important for the tenses, however, the other auxiliary verbs and their specific uses are beyond the scope of this book.
Hi, I am curious about one thing, gerund. What do you think which one should be with ing, verb-root or bare infinitive?
Hi Jaewan, I believe an -ing form will usually be followed by the infinitive (including to), I can’t think of an example where one would be followed by the bare infinitive. E.g. “I’m planning to drive.”
hello
i dont understand
Which part?
As I’ve been thought, about gerund, they are confused by present participle verb form.
All gerund have -ing
As all present participle verb.
The first-one is considered a noun or adjective.
The second-one is a verb used next the auxiliary verb to be for simple progressive tense form, present, past, or future.
As well perfect progressive tense form in present, past, and future.
There is a misleading spread info about it, but I may be wrong, help me about in that case.
Hi Idalid,
Apologies for the slow reply, I thought I had responded to this. Yes I think you’ve summarised it fine; the word type depends on its grammatical function, with gerund essentially being the label we give the participle form when it is used as a noun or adjective.
Phil
Excuse me, in the part of modal verbs and bare infinitive it’s like we use bare infinitive with auxiliaries because auxiliares modifie bare infinitives like “do” and “modal verbs” ?
Hi Carlos,
If I understand correctly, do you mean to ask if modal verbs essentially take the place of “do” in these constructions? If so then yes, as a more general point I’d say in these situations we have a main verb which is conjugated, such as “do” or a modal verb, and the bare infinitive comes as a second verb, affected or applied by that verb.
Phil
What’s about constraction ‘I want you to go’ or ‘I don’t want him to know it’. Do we meet the bare verb? And what is kind of English Grammar? I mean, where I can find more information about this formula?
The verb ‘want’ is followed by the infinitive, “to go”, “to know” (not bare as it has ‘to’) – this is the grammar of whether particular verbs are followed by infinitives or -ing forms of verbs.
If you’re referring to the main verb, with “I want you to go”, want is in its conjugated form, depending on the subject – with the negative form, we use an auxiliary verb “do” so the main verb is put into the bare infinitive – “I do not want” (want is infinitive). This grammar is the difference between affirmative and negative sentences.
Excuse me Mr Willians , what about the case of this sentence:”all what you do is blame” ,why does the word “blame” appear as a bare infinitive?.I mean , wouldn’t it have to be “blaming” instead of “blame” so that the gerund blamind would work as a noun.Or maybe putting” to blame”, why is the first sentence correct, pls answer my existential question
Hi Godnil, the bare infinitive is used as a complement in this example, and the way we fit verb complements (either infinitive or gerund forms) mostly depends on the verb they follow; with “do/done is …” we follow it with the bare infinitive or infinitive, the same way we would for verbs like ‘help’ (e.g. “I want to help wash the dishes”, not “help washing”). It’s merely that other verbs take different verb forms as a complement, so for example “try”. So your sentence, with different verbs, might take different complements (also note it’s ‘that’ rather than ‘what’):
All that you do is blame.
All that you tried was blaming.
This just about works as a fragment but for a simple, more natural expressions it might be clearer to rephrase:
The only thing you do is blame others.
The only thing you try is blaming others.
I hope this helps!
I really appreciate how you clearly explain the Bare Infinitive (so called infinitive as far as my problem is concerned).
Now, the question is: If a verb that follows a modal verb is called a Bare Infinitive, does this mean we call all ordinary verbs Bare Infinitives?
Hi Basir, it depends on usage. An “ordinary verb” out of context, without the ‘to’, would indeed be a bare infinitive, for example if you were listing verbs, but used in a sentence it depends on grammatical function. Following a subject, it could be a conjugated verb rather than a bare infinitive, as it’s been included considering changes for the subject (even if it appears the same as the bare infinitive).
E.g. “We walk home.” – ‘walk’ here is conjugated to fit ‘we’, which appears the same as the bare infinitive but is actually a functioning verb, because with a different subject it would change form, e.g. “He walks home.”
I hope this helps!
what a teacher should consider in teaching bare infinitive?
Hi April, much of this article should help clarify it, but probably the trickiest thing to focus on is how the bare infinitive is not the same as a conjugated verb, even though it looks the same. This is something to cover by discussing the different grammatical functions of a main verb and the bare inifinitve.
Hi Phil,
I’ve been taught that “continuous tenses (whether past/present/future) are formed with the relevant tense of the auxiliary verb “to be” and the present participle of the main verb.” My question is why refer to the auxiliary verb as “to be” instead of just “be”?
Regards
Hi Vegito, in general we’d use the infinitive in such situations to be clear that we are talking about the verb grammatically (with the consideration that it might be changed to fit into the sentence) rather than the word ‘be’ itself. It’s not always done this way, people may use the bare infinitive in such situations, but it is more immediately clear to use the infinitive.
Hi Phil,
I’ve also heard about the term “base form” of a verb being used. Just to confirm, base form of a verb means the exact same thing as bare infinitive form of a verb (i.e. infinitive form of a verb without “to”)?
Also, I am aware of the grammatical rule which requires all main verbs to be in the bare infinitive form if these main verbs follow auxiliary verbs such as “do” or modal verbs. However, just for analysis sake, is it right to say that the reason for this rule is because for such cases, the auxiliary verbs already perform the function of indicating the person and tense, and hence no issue with the main verb remaining in base form?
Thanks!
Regards,
Shizuka
Hi Shizuka,
Yes, I would understand base form to be the same as bare infinitive. And I think you are perfectly correct with your analysis there, when the work of conjugation has already been done by an auxiliary, the infinitive form that follows has no need to change.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Firstly, is it right to say that there are three categories of verbals, namely infinitives, gerunds and participles?
Secondly, you mentioned that “After the “do” auxiliary, the main verb becomes a bare infinitive”, so a “bare infinitive” = a verb? I ask this because I thought verbs are verbs and infinitives (being what are called verbals) while derived from verbs, are not considered as verbs?
Thirdly, as you’ve mentioned in the article above, the verbs following the auxiliary verbs (e.g. “Do” as well as the modal verbs) must always be in the base form of the verb (or as you put it, its bare infinitive form), I am curious how we see the other tenses formed using other auxiliary verbs (e.g. forms of the verb “Be”, such as is/are/were). So this links back to my second query above, are verbals (e.g. bare infinitives) considered as verbs? If so, this means the other verbals such as gerunds and participles are also considered verbs? As such, let’s examine an example in the present continuous tense (e.g. I am running), am I right to say that the auxiliary verb is “am”, while running is a verbal (i.e. a participle) which is also considered as a verb, since it forms part of the complete verb “am running”?
Thanks!
Regards,
Shizuka
Hi Shizuka,
I suppose this is another area where it depends on what we’re trying to define or clarify. You’re right that verbal can be used for these different types of words that derive from a verb, but it’s not a term I use as I don’t think it serves much purpose in the context of language functions. I personally use verb to refer to the verb in its various conjugated forms, but also to refer to a complete verb phrase as it functions in a sentence (depending on if we’re looking at it at a sentence or word level). In the latter context, yes, you could include an infinitive, -ing form or participle under that label. But if I were breaking down a verb phrase, I’d distinguish between the verb that’s conjugated and an infinitive or participle, to explain how the verb phrase is made up. These words each have specific functions and places in the structure of English that can help to explain how the language works, whereas the term verbals serves more of an etymological purpose which isn’t necessarily useful if we’re concerned with explaining verb functions.
To try and specifically answer you question then, verbals aren’t exactly considered verbs in the context of language learning; I’d see it more as a way to group words based on their origins than their grammatical function.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Your article above quotes ‘The first sentence the main verb, did, means completed in the past, while in the second sentence uses did as an auxiliary, to create a question.’ Must be some typos, perhaps rephrasing slightly as ‘In the first sentence, the main verb, did, means completed in the past, while the second sentence uses did as as an auxiliary to create a questions’. May I know if my proposed re-phrasing is grammatical? thanks!
Regards,
Shizuka
Hi Shizuka, Yes that’s right, it would be more grammatical with that “in”!