Lastly, historical linguists have speculated that its origins may lie in Old French[citation needed]. The split infinitive seems to have appeared after the Norman Conquest, when English came into contact with Old French. It is not found in other Germanic languages, except modern Swedish, in which it is an independent development[citation needed]; German still does not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its particle (preposition). However, a construction which is similar, at least superficially, can be found in French and other Romance languages. Compare modern German, French, and English:
- Ich beschließe, etwas nicht zu tun.
- I decide not to do something.
- Je décide de ne pas faire quelque chose.
- I decide to not do something.
Thus it might be argued that the English split infinitive ("I decide to not do something") may have arisen under the influence of French. However, grammarians of the Romance languages do not use the term "split infinitive" to describe the phenomenon in those languages, since there the preposition is not considered a part of the infinitive form, and despite the surface-level similarity there are significant syntactical differences between the English and French constructions.
[into this]
External Influence
Linguistic discrepancy can focus on the possibility of its origins presumably belonging to interaction with Romance Languages which use double negatives with necessity, requiring a split infinitive to separate modal verbs within a sentence. The split infinitive first likely appears after the Norman Conquest, as English came into contact with Old French producing an amalgamate Anglo Norman language. It is not found in other Germanic languages, Old Frankish is another example of romance language vernacular imbuing the split infinitive to a Germanic language; German/Deutsch still does not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its particle (preposition). However, a construction which is similar, at least superficially, can be found in French and other Romance languages. Compare modern German, French, and English:- Ich beschließe, etwas nicht zu tun.
- I decide not to do something.
- Je décide de ne pas faire quelque chose.
- I decide to not do something.
[on Wikipedia, and i got this, on my wiki message board]
Hi. I reverted most of your changes at split infinitive because I couldn't understand them. Maybe you could explain what you meant at the the talk page? Were you saying that it's known that Old Frankish had split infinitives? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
[so I, on my message board, intellectually aggravated and condescending in turn wrote this reply:]
that is truly regrettable, for it was in English. did i change your entry? you 'slashed' the entry, because the semantics eluded your comprehension, or the slap-dash erasure was for your inability to note that a citation was needed, the code is cn yes?
my comprehension requires your response. admittedly, i have no druthers on the issue, for i have aired my opinion on my blog, it is likely that I've implied a conjecture, i will not implement the changes again. the world is a xoo, perhaps it was Frankish and not old Frankish. ne'ertheless, the section really doesn't need to start with 'lastly', it's an encyclopedia, not a public school book report.
"Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable."
Matthewjbanks (talk) 03:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
[English, broken English, and the lot is now a world language influential on all else; the very notion of double negatives had surfaced after I wrote "in nearly silence," to some of my writings elsewhere, eventually inferring an error; net neutrality doesn't exist within Wikipedia, my wish is that "illiberal distrust" doesn't cause deresolution.]