New texts - some practical points.

[Peter Jones]

(Look at page 944 of this book

At £136.69 I could not afford so to do

[Calum Cille]

... It is more appropriate to place a comma in "Κύριε, ελέησον" if you intend "(o) Lord, have mercy" (imperative) rather than "(o) Lord going to show mercy" (participle, functioning adjectivally, in the vocative), just as it is more appropriate to place a comma in "Lord, have mercy" if you intend the meaning "(o) Lord, have mercy" (imperative) rather than the meaning "(may the) Lord have mercy" (infinitive), as per "God bless". ...

"may the Lord have mercy" demonstrates the infinitive; to mark "have" as the subjunctive form would have been incorrect.

It's still not an infinitive! It's an optative with the syntactic form of a closed interrogative. (Look at page 944 of this book (or serach in it for Long may she reign over us ).)

A closed interrogative is a type of clause, not a form of verb; there is no optative form in English verbal morphology. "Have", in "may the Lord have mercy on your soul", is an instance of the infinitive form of the verb, not a type of clause. Examples of the bare infinitive may be found for free (without resort even to a library card) online here (or in High may your proud standards gloriously wave).

The word "may" (and not the infinitive "have") effectively performs the job of the subjunctive here; in fact, it was the use of inflected forms of verbs such as "may" which assisted in the decline of the inflected forms of the subjunctive in Old English.

[Southern Comfort]

Have to say I'm with mcb on this. "Have" in "may the Lord have mercy on us" is not an infinitive by any stretch of the imagination, except in some mysterious parallel universe that orthodox grammarians do not inhabit; and the optative is a mood, not a clause. "May" is of course a subjunctive component, as any fule kno.

There's more to life than tropes, which I never mentioned until CC brought them up. Indeed, CC is the one who keeps bringing them up, interminably. I must say that it gets very tedious to be continually lectured — and inaccurately, at that — on subjects of peripheral interest that some of us are rather more conversant with than the lecturer seems to realise and which the vast majority of our contributors simply have no interest in at all.

I know I've said this before, but I feel that this sort of straining at gnats is not the SSG forum at its best by a long way.

[mcb]

A closed interrogative is a type of clause, not a form of verb; there is no optative form in English verbal morphology. "Have", in "may the Lord have mercy on your soul", is an instance of the infinitive form of the verb, not a type of clause. Examples of the bare infinitive may be found for free (without resort even to a library card) online here (or in High may your proud standards gloriously wave).

The word "may" (and not the infinitive "have") effectively performs the job of the subjunctive here; in fact, it was the use of inflected forms of verbs such as "may" which assisted in the decline of the inflected forms of the subjunctive in Old English.

Hmm... CGEL calls it the bare infinitival, and the authors evidently mean that too as a property of the clause. Morphologically there's no infinitive in English, just the 'plain form' of the verb. (If 'have' is an infinitive, it's a spooky coincidence that it's the same as the imperative and the subjunctive)... [Cont. p. 94]

[Calum Cille]

... "Have" in "may the Lord have mercy on us" is not an infinitive by any stretch of the imagination, except in some mysterious parallel universe that orthodox grammarians do not inhabit ...

Kindly prove that statement and then I'll believe you.

There's more to life than tropes, which I never mentioned until CC brought them up. Indeed, CC is the one who keeps bringing them up, interminably.

Rich as a medieval repertoire of interpolated acclamatory text, they were pertinent to the discussion and I have every right to bring them up. No one on this forum should be discouraged from replying to a point on the grounds that the evidence has already been mentioned on the forum before in another context.

I must say that it gets very tedious to be continually lectured — and inaccurately, at that — on subjects of peripheral interest that some of us are rather more conversant with than the lecturer seems to realise and which the vast majority of our contributors simply have no interest in at all.

No forum member should be discouraged from replying to discrete points on the grounds that they are lecturing, or that the content of their messages are inaccurate, whether continually or not. They should also not be discouraged from replying on a topic of peripheral interest if it is pertinent and if another member of the forum wishes to discuss it. You yourself are willing to discuss the rights and wrongs of commas.

No member should be discouraged by comments which imply that he views other forum members as knowing less than he does. The only person introducing know-all attitudes here is you, when you write, "... subjects ... that some of us are rather more conversant with than the lecturer seems to realise ..."

I know I've said this before, but I feel that this sort of straining at gnats is not the SSG forum at its best by a long way.

No one should be discouraged from participating on this forum by suggestions that they are not worthy of it on the grounds of detailedness or quality.

If you can prove that anything I have written on this topic is inaccurate, please do so. Simply stating that I am inaccurate is mere assertion.

[Calum Cille]

Hmm... CGEL calls it the bare infinitival, and the authors evidently mean that too as a property of the clause.

"Have" in "may the Lord have" would be called an "infinitive" by modern grammarians. "Bare infinitive" is so-called, ie, it is a neologism. The phrase "bare infinitive" does not describe any other linguistic feature.

"Infinitival" is an adjective found in collocation with words such as "complement", "adjunct", "clause" and so on, and "bare infinitival" would be shorthand for a larger collocation.

Morphologically there's no infinitive in English, just the 'plain form' of the verb. (If 'have' is an infinitive, it's a spooky coincidence that it's the same as the imperative and the subjunctive)... [Cont. p. 94]

"The infinitive form of a verb is the (uninflected) form which is used when the verb is the complement of a modal auxiliary like can, or of the infinitive particle to. Accordingly, the bold-printed verbs are infinitive forms in the following sentences: He can speak French, He's trying to learn French."
Andrew Radford, Syntax: a minimalist introduction, 1997, p263. This is an abridged version of Syntactic theory and the structure of English.

The reasons that modern grammarians use the terms "infinitive" and "bare infinitive" for single words are historical. In Old English, there was an infinitive form, eg, "fremman" (to do), which was a single word, as today. Current understanding is that it would have existed in the language before the to-infinitive existed, eg, "tō fremmenne" (in order to do). The bare infinitive was then, as now, used with auxiliary/modal verbs.

[mcb]

OK, you win, CC! (SC, you backed the wrong horse. ) Radford is using the terminology differently from Pullum & co in CGEL, but by the look of it his usage is more in keeping with traditional accounts. (And my expertise is in the bits of linguistics beginning with 'phon'...)

[NorthernTenor]

Kindly prove that statement and then I'll believe you.
...
Rich as a medieval repertoire of interpolated acclamatory text, they were pertinent to the discussion and I have every right to bring them up. No one on this forum should be discouraged from replying to a point on the grounds that the evidence has already been mentioned on the forum before in another context.
...
No forum member should be discouraged from replying to discrete points on the grounds that they are lecturing, or that the content of their messages are inaccurate, whether continually or not. They should also not be discouraged from replying on a topic of peripheral interest if it is pertinent and if another member of the forum wishes to discuss it.
...
No member should be discouraged by comments which imply that he views other forum members as knowing less than he does. The only person introducing know-all attitudes here is you ...
...
No one should be discouraged from participating on this forum by suggestions that they are not worthy of it on the grounds of detailedness or quality.

If you can prove that anything I have written on this topic is inaccurate, please do so. Simply stating that I am inaccurate is mere assertion.

Hear him.

[Calum Cille]

Hear him.

Graciously hear him.