To-Infinitive in Hebrew

[nzk13]

Wikipedia:

Hebrew has two infinitives, the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: bikhtōbh hassōphēr "when the scribe wrote", ahare lekhtō "after his going". When the infinitive construct is preceded by ל (lə-, li-, lā-) "to", it has a similar meaning as the English to-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus, as in מות ימות mōth yāmūth (literally "die he will die"; figuratively, "he shall indeed die"). This usage is commonplace in the Bible, but in Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-flown literary works.
Note, however, that the to-infinitive of Hebrew is not the dictionary form; that is the third person singular perfect form.

Question: Why is it that Hebrew, which is a language very very far removed from English, uses the to-infinitive; especially since no other language in this article (like Latin, Greek, French, Arabic, etc.) has it? Also, are there any other languages that have it?
EDIT: By the way, Judaeo-Aramaic uses it too, although that's probably influenced by the Hebrew.

[Chagen]

Because coincidences happen.

[Iron]

mōth yāmūth (literally "die he will die"; figuratively, "he shall indeed die")

Maybe in Biblical Hebrew. But literally, in Modern Hebrew at least, it means "a death he will die."

On the to-infinitive, I think it may just be a coincidence that it's the same prefix. Hebrew has a lot of quirky similarities, such as stress defining whether a specific noun construct is possessive or adjective, e.g. leshoni is either "my tongue" (first syllable is stressed) or "lingual" (last syllable is stressed). In this example, it can also mean "towards difference" (middle syllable is stressed).

[Systemzwang]

Wikipedia:

Hebrew has two infinitives, the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: bikhtōbh hassōphēr "when the scribe wrote", ahare lekhtō "after his going". When the infinitive construct is preceded by ל (lə-, li-, lā-) "to", it has a similar meaning as the English to-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus, as in מות ימות mōth yāmūth (literally "die he will die"; figuratively, "he shall indeed die"). This usage is commonplace in the Bible, but in Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-flown literary works.
Note, however, that the to-infinitive of Hebrew is not the dictionary form; that is the third person singular perfect form.

Question: Why is it that Hebrew, which is a language very very far removed from English, uses the to-infinitive; especially since no other language in this article (like Latin, Greek, French, Arabic, etc.) has it? Also, are there any other languages that have it?
EDIT: By the way, Judaeo-Aramaic uses it too, although that's probably influenced by the Hebrew.

Several scandinavian dialects have infinitives that are formed in the same way. (E.g. my own native dialect, spoken on an island off Vaasa). Also, Spanish, French and German sometimes require similar prepositions (zu, a, à) in front of infinitives in certain constructions where the preposition clearly doesn't have any ~locative-like~ significance. IRC friends also claim Romanian can qualify in this club.

[Shemtov]

Several scandinavian dialects have infinitives that are formed in the same way. (E.g. my own native dialect, spoken on an island off Vaasa). Also, Spanish, French and German sometimes require similar prepositions (zu, a, à) in front of infinitives in certain constructions where the preposition clearly doesn't have any ~locative-like~ significance. IRC friends also claim Romanian can qualify in this club.

Could this have been a Germanic feature (Remember that Spanish and French both have a Germanic substratum) that was only fully preserved in the Anglic Languages?
Does Frisian have a to-infinitives?

[Prinsessa]

I don't know if Ancient Hebrew did this, but if it didn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the German(ic)-speaking jews involved would have had some sort of influence from their native language creeping into their Hebrew when the revival was first initiated.

[Shemtov]

I don't know if Ancient Hebrew did this, but if it didn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the German(ic)-speaking jews involved would have had some sort of influence from their native language creeping into their Hebrew when the revival was first initiated.

Actually, Biblical Hebrew did have a to-Infinitive, for example, in The Original Babeltext (Verse 5), [lir.os] means "to see" the plain form of "see" being [jira], with the [j] dropped and the [li] inserted. [li] means 'to" in most cases.

Actually, there are ancient Jewish texts that say that some Canaanites, whose language was closely related to Hebreqw, fled too Northern Europe, where there assimilated into the Germanic population.
Could the shared to-infinitive give some weight to that tradition?

[nzk13]

I don't know if Ancient Hebrew did this, but if it didn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the German(ic)-speaking jews involved would have had some sort of influence from their native language creeping into their Hebrew when the revival was first initiated.

Actually, Biblical Hebrew did have a to-Infinitive, for example, in The Original Babeltext (Verse 5), [lir.os] means "to see" the plain form of "see" being [jira], with the [j] dropped and the [li] inserted. [li] means 'to" in most cases.

Actually, there are ancient Jewish texts that say that some Canaanites, whose language was closely related to Hebreqw, fled too Northern Europe, where there assimilated into the Germanic population.
Could the shared to-infinitive give some weight to that tradition?

Just wondering, shemtov: Which 'ancient Jewish texts' are you referring to? I'm interested in seeing it for myself, you see. But yes, it is quite prevalent in the Bible. But, does not [jira] (presumably "יראה") mean fear? I think you mean [re_X?ijja:] (ראיה, root ר-א-ה), no? I know that the in [li] is usually as a result of an immediately following "י" ([j]), but I think that it is like that here because you can't have a shva na (something like a very short [e]) right before a shva nach (null vowel) (under the "ר" ([r])), so the "ל" ([l]) gets the instead.

[Shemtov]

I don't know if Ancient Hebrew did this, but if it didn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the German(ic)-speaking jews involved would have had some sort of influence from their native language creeping into their Hebrew when the revival was first initiated.

Actually, Biblical Hebrew did have a to-Infinitive, for example, in The Original Babeltext (Verse 5), [lir.os] means "to see" the plain form of "see" being [jira], with the [j] dropped and the [li] inserted. [li] means 'to" in most cases.

Actually, there are ancient Jewish texts that say that some Canaanites, whose language was closely related to Hebreqw, fled too Northern Europe, where there assimilated into the Germanic population.
Could the shared to-infinitive give some weight to that tradition?

Just wondering, shemtov: Which 'ancient Jewish texts' are you referring to? I'm interested in seeing it for myself, you see. But yes, it is quite prevalent in the Bible. But, does not [jira] (presumably "יראה") mean fear? I think you mean [re_X?ijja:] (ראיה, root ר-א-ה), no? I know that the in [li] is usually as a result of an immediately following "י" ([j]), but I think that it is like that here because you can't have a shva na (something like a very short [e]) right before a shva nach (null vowel) (under the "ר" ([r])), so the "ל" ([l]) gets the instead.

Your right, it is [ra.a] I got confused with [jirɛ], a very common conjugation of the root R?H., which, in my idiolect is pronounced almost the same as [jira].

[nzk13]

I know I'm going off-topic with this, but do I detect a Sephardic/Mizrahi-ish pronunciation (kamatz as [a] instead of [ɔ])? I generally speak with an Ashkenazi accent (Cholam as [ɔj]/[oj], not [o] or [ej]), but I like distinguishing the qof [q], aleph [ʔ], `ayin [ʕ] and cheth [ħ]; bet , gimel [g], dalet [d], kaf [k], peh [p], tav [t] raphe as [β~v ɣ~ʁ ð x~χ ɸ~f θ] and trying to do Tsade (s with pharyngeal/velar coarticulation) and Tet (the same with t), a bit like the Yemenites. I pronounce every vowel differently (except I have difficulty with Chataf patach and segol), except for the Cholam, which is not distinguished from the diphthong at the end of words like "גוי", both as [ɔj] or [oj] (allophonic). And Resh is [r] or [ɾ] (not the american or the guttural 'r'). A lot of this is not how I grew up doing it, but it is how I like to pronounce it. Mind sharing some details of your own idiolect?

Edited to include IPA. For some reason it shows 'x' and 'χ' identically in the published post in my browser, but not while I'm editing it.

[Iron]

I know I'm going off-topic with this, but do I detect a Sephardic/Mizrahi-ish pronunciation (kamatz as [a] instead of [ɔ])? I generally speak with an Ashkenazi accent (Cholam as [ɔj]/[oj], not [o] or [ej]), but I like distinguishing the qof [q], aleph [ʔ], `ayin [ʕ] and cheth [ħ]; bet , gimel [g], dalet [d], kaf [k], peh [p], tav [t] raphe as [β~v ɣ~ʁ ð x~χ ɸ~f θ] and trying to do Tsade (s with pharyngeal/velar coarticulation) and Tet (the same with t), a bit like the Yemenites. I pronounce every vowel differently (except I have difficulty with Chataf patach and segol), except for the Cholam, which is not distinguished from the diphthong at the end of words like "גוי", both as [ɔj] or [oj] (allophonic). And Resh is [r] or [ɾ] (not the american or the guttural 'r'). A lot of this is not how I grew up doing it, but it is how I like to pronounce it. Mind sharing some details of your own idiolect?

Edited to include IPA. For some reason it shows 'x' and 'χ' identically in the published post in my browser, but not while I'm editing it.

Sure. My vowels are pretty much always [i ɛ~e̞ o̞~o ä~ɑ u], so nothing special there. My qof is distinguished only in certain words, such as /qor/ "frost." Otherwise, it's usually [k] or even [c].

My aleph-ayin are not even pronounced, and I just lengthen the vowel or make it a non-syllabic "cluster." words like /maʕajan/ become /ma:jan/, and etc. This is rarely problematic though, even with the "skin"-"light" words, which are /ʕor/ and /ʔor/. Context usually clarifies it up. Occasionally, I may slip and pronounce /b/-[v] as [w], but never have I managed to accidentally pronounce /t d g/ as [θ ð ɣ]. My /p/ is always [p f] so yup. I do manage to contrast between /ħ/ and /k/-[x] though. I always use /ħaʃmal/ as an example to demonstrate this. I always had a strange /r/, which resulted in me pronouncing it like [ʀ], but lately I've started to pronounce it as [ɾ].

On a funny note, my friends occasionally mock me because I may sometimes pronounce /l/ as [ɫ], accidentally, which gives my speech a Russian accent. At least I don't palatalize my consonants, but still.

[Shemtov]

I know I'm going off-topic with this, but do I detect a Sephardic/Mizrahi-ish pronunciation (kamatz as [a] instead of [ɔ])? .

Actually, I use the Ashkenazic pronunciation, but I used to use the Sephardic one until 4 years ago, so sometimes when I'm transcribing from my head I mix it up.
These days, most Non-Chassidic, Non-Hungarian Ashkenazim pronounce Cholam as [o], so I do too.
I can't really say I have much of an idiolect aside from the Kamatz/patach confusion and a conflation of Segol and Patach, as, for various reasons, try to force myself to speak like most American Orthodox Non-Chassidic, Non-Hungarian Ashkenazim.

[Shemtov]

I don't know if Ancient Hebrew did this, but if it didn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the German(ic)-speaking jews involved would have had some sort of influence from their native language creeping into their Hebrew when the revival was first initiated.

Actually, Biblical Hebrew did have a to-Infinitive, for example, in The Original Babeltext (Verse 5), [lir.os] means "to see" the plain form of "see" being [jira], with the [j] dropped and the [li] inserted. [li] means 'to" in most cases.

Actually, there are ancient Jewish texts that say that some Canaanites, whose language was closely related to Hebreqw, fled too Northern Europe, where there assimilated into the Germanic population.
Could the shared to-infinitive give some weight to that tradition?

Just wondering, shemtov: Which 'ancient Jewish texts' are you referring to? I'm interested in seeing it for myself, you see.

The biblical commentary of Ibn Ezra too Obadiah 1:20.

[Curlyjimsam]

Heine and Kuteva's World Lexicon of Grammaticalization has the following to say:

ALLATIVE markers [e.g. "to"] tend to give rise to PURPOSE markers, which may further develop into INFINITIVE markers, a purpose which has been well described by Haspelmath (1989).

The reference is to Haspelmath's article From purposive to infinitive - a universal path of grammaticalization.

Heine & Kuteva give several examples both of allative > purpose (in Imonda, Lezgian, Albanian and Basque) and purpose > infinitive (in German, English, Baka, Easter Island and a few creoles).

[gach]

Heine & Kuteva give several examples both of allative > purpose (in Imonda, Lezgian, Albanian and Basque) and purpose > infinitive (in German, English, Baka, Easter Island and a few creoles).

The full way from a lative case into infinitive is also documented. The infinitive ending -š in Mari (as in tola-š, "to come") comes diachronically from the west Uralic lative case ending *-s which also survives as the contemporary lative ending -(e)š in the language (olma-š, "to an apple"). Similarly in Mordvin the same case marker survives both as the illative ending -s (viŕ-s, "into forest") as well as the latter part of the basic infinitive -ms (sa-ms, "to come"). This Mordvin infinitive is a composite morpheme that originates from the Proto Uralic verbal noun/converb *-mA that got suffixed with the lative ending, *-mA-s > -ms.

A morphologically unrelated but parallel development is the Finno-Saamic infinitive that goes back to Proto Finno-Saamic *-tAk (underlyingly -tAʔ in Finnish). The final *-k in this form represents another ancient lative form and is again consistent with the theme movement towards > infinitive.

There's also another contemporary development in Finnish demonstrating the same process. Besides the basic so called 1st infinitive, another common infinite verbal complement is the so called 3rd infinitive illative -mAAn which consists of the same converb -mA we already saw in Mordvin and the illative case ending -Vn. This form is distinct from the 1st infinitive as it can create purpose complements,

Halua-n syö-dä.
want-SG1 eat-INF1
"I want to eat."

Halua-n syö-mä-än.
want-SG1 eat-INF3-ILL
"I want (to go) to eat."

However, it's also used as the basic complement for certain verbs where it fully lacks the purpose element,

Ryhdy-n syö-mä-än.
begin-SG1 eat-INF3-ILL
"I begin to eat."

and is furthermore taking over the 1st infinitive on certain other verbs as shown by the following variation in spoken language,

Ala-n syö-dä ~ syö-mä-än.
begin-SG1 eat-INF1 ~ eat-INF3-ILL
"I begin to eat."

The infinitives that come out as end products of this process have no notion of movement of even purpose attached to them but elements denoting movement still find their way there over and over again.