Is the Infinitive Really So Basic?

Abstract

When discussing the German verb, many elementary texts and reference grammars of modern German distinguish between the and the infinitive. Moeller and Liedloff' describe the infinitive as the of a German verb (the listed in dictionaries and vocabularies) that consists of a stem and the ending -en or Taking a somewhat different approach to the infinitive, Johannes Erben2 states that [d]ie verbale Grundform hat das Morphem -en/-n, indicating that the stem, rather than the infinitive, is the verbal form. George O. Curme's3 method for determining the stem of the verb involves cutting off -en from the infinitive, or -n after -el and -er, to arrive at the of which grow all the varied of conjugation. The discussion of the stem of the strong verb in the Duden grammar 4 identifies a first Stammform of the verb for the formation of the present indicative and first subjunctive and a second Stammform for the formation of the preterite indicative and second subjunctive forms. These discussions of the stem and the infinitive raise the question, Is the German infinitive really the 'basic' of the verb? Should it necessarily be the of the verb we first introduce to our beginning students in vocabularies and glossaries? Could there perhaps be convincing reasons to introduce our students first to the present stems of German verbs as forms and treat infinitives as derivatives of these? Since we prefer that our students learn the language primarily as a means of communication rather than as a system of grammatical paradigms, it is to their advantage to learn the verbs in a way that helps them avoid unnecessary confusion about the these verbs take in discourse. We could prevent the tendency of many beginning students to use the infinitive as the personal in simple utterances by first presenting the stem of the verb as the basic and the infinitive later as derived from it. This article discusses some reasons for beginning with stems and a method for doing so. Clearly the standard way to present German verbs in dictionaries and vocabularies is to list them in their infinitive forms, even though we are repeatedly told that the personal of the simple tenses are derived not from their infinitives, but from their stems. The infinitive, as is pointed out in one way or another, is the present tense stem with the ending -en or -n. The notable exception is, of course, the infinitive sein. Although it is certainly valid to list the German verb in the infinitive in dictionaries, it is more confusing than helpful to students of elementary German to present the infinitive as the form of a verb in beginning textbooks. Linguistically unsophisticated students in beginning German have no clear concept of the difference between the stem and infinitive of a German verb. This seems to be due to the ambiguous relationship between the stem and infinitive in English. Whereas the English make, for example, functions both as the stem of the present tense and as the infinitive, the German machen functions as the infinitive but never as