Infinitive Mood

                                                      Infinitive Mood

 expresses an action or state without reference to any subject. It can be the source of sentence fragments when the writer mistakenly thinks the infinitive form is a fully-functioning verb.

When we speak of the English infinitive, we usually mean the basic form of the verb with “to” in front of it: to go, to sing, to walk, to speak.

Verbs said to be in the infinitive mood can include participle forms ending in -ed and -ing. Verbs in the infinitive mood are not being used as verbs, but as other parts of speech:

To err is human; to forgive, divine. Here, to err and to forgive are used as nouns.

He is a man to be admired. Here, to be admired is an adjective, the equivalent of admirable. It describes the noun man.

He came to see you. Here, to see you is used as an adverb to tell why he came.