I'm not going there, because we're never going to agree and the argument would descend

into sterile assertion on each side.

I was just intrigued by your reference to objections to a split infinitive to be based on "the rules of Latin", which puzzled me given that Latin has a single word as its infinitive, and therefore can have no rules about splitting infinitives.

However, I now discover that you are simply recycliing a piece of linguistic folklore which deserves no attention,

"The argument from classical languages

Opdycke's mention of Latin above leads to a frequently discussed argument: that opposition to split infinitives in English is based on the impossibility of splitting them in Latin and Greek. Although it is not clear that this argument has ever been common among prescriptivists (with Richard Bailey, a professor of English, supposing arguments from other languages are "part of the folklore of linguistics"),[23] many of those who accept split infinitives ascribe such an argument to their opponents.[24][25][26] One example is in the American Heritage Book of English Usage: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin."[7] In more detail, the usage author Marilyn Moriarty states:

The rule forbidding a split infinitive comes from the time when Latin was the universal language of the world. All scholarly, respectable writing was done in Latin. Scientists and scholars even took Latin names to show that they were learned. In Latin, infinitives appear as a single word. The rule which prohibits splitting an infinite [sic] shows deference to Latin and to the time when the rules which governed Latin grammar were applied to other languages.[27]

Thus the argument implies an adherence to the humanist idea of the greater purity of the classics,[28] an idea which modern linguistics rejects. Those who state the argument often refute it immediately. First, as the American Heritage Book of English Usage goes on to remark, "English is not Latin."[7] Besides, as Latin has no marker, it does not model either solution to the question of where to place one: "there is no precedent in these languages for condemning the split infinitive because in Greek and Latin (and all the other romance languages) the infinitive is a single word that is impossible to sever."[29] Thus if the argument ever was used, it is untenable.

In any case, Moriarty is clearly in error when she dates the prohibition to a time when Latin was regarded as the only scholarly language - this was not the case in 1834. As shown above, none of the prescriptivists who began the split-infinitive controversy mentioned Latin in this connection. Of the writers cited here (and the many others consulted) who ascribe the split-infinitive prohibition to Latinism, none cite a source, and as Bailey says this ascription may be "folklore"."

Posted By: Old Git on July 13th 2007 at 16:49:21

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in