--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andy Howey <andyandmae_howey@...> wrote:
>
> I'm not a native speaker, but I spent a fair amount of time learning
Russian. No, it is not inflected (or conjugated). It is an
infinitive, which, as far as I understand, by definition, is not
conjugated or declined. It would be the same in English or German:
>
> The professor asked (his) assistant _to read_ "his" report.
> Der Professor hat seinen Assistenten gebeten, "seinen" Bericht zu
> lesen.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "by definition". Infinitive forms are
verbal nouns and, as such, may be conjugated in some languages. For
example, Old English had the infinitive in "-an", which was a neuter
noun used substantively in the nominative and accusative. However, the
dative case in "-enne" also appeared, regularly after the preposition
"to:" as in "to: ræ:denne" ("to read"). The Germanic infinitive was
a neuter verbal noun ending in "-anan" in nominative-accusative, but,
as I recall, various case forms appear in the early attested Germanic
languages. The Old English dative descended from an oblique form
declined as a ja-stem neuter.
I don't know if there was ever a time in the history of the Slavic
languages where the infinitive was declined. Experts here may know.
The infinitive was not a common IE grammatical feature, but various
deverbal nouns were adapted to that purpose in the separate branches.
Best - Greg