SPINF Split infinitives

Xiao N101 child of SPLIT_ALL

Definition

Adverb inserted between “to” and infinitive verb.

Parent

SPLIT_ALL

Detection Rules

pybiber

pybiber checks two patterns: to+RB+VB (single adverb) and to+RB+RB+VB (double adverb, e.g., “to more fully understand”).

p1 
cql[word="to" & pos="TO"] [pos="RB"] [pos="VB"]
p2 
cql[word="to" & pos="TO"] [pos="RB"] [pos="RB"] [pos="VB"]
combine: p1 | p2

Requires: word, pos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

to boldly go

to fully understand

to never return

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

Notes

Not listed with a separate dimension loading in Biber 1988.

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