INFIN Infinitives

Biber H24 Xiao L94 Bohmann 61

Definition

To-infinitive constructions.

Detection Rules

TO particle followed by base verb. Misses elliptical infinitives like “Glad to.” where the verb is elided.

cql[word="to" & pos="TO"] [pos="VB"]

Requires: word, pos

pybiber

All TO particles. pybiber does not check for a following verb — it counts any “to” tagged TO, including elliptical cases.

cql[word="to" & pos="TO"]

Requires: word, pos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

to go

to speak

wanted to leave

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
  • xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
  • grieve_2023 — Grieve, Jack (2023) : Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
  • bohmann_2019 — Bohmann, Axel (2019) : Variation in English Worldwide: Varieties and Genres in a Quantitative Perspective

Notes

Highest loading on D4. Not counted as a separate feature in MFTE. Requires POS tag detection of “to” + VB.

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