Infinitive in Italian

What is the infinitive (infinito) in Italian?

The Italian infinitive mood (modo infinito) is mainly the basic grammatical form of a verb. 

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Use of the infinitive mood in Italian

For Italian speakers, the infinitive mood specifies:

• the action conveyed by the verb in general terms;
• the specific conjugation the verbs belong to.

How to conjugate the infinitive in Italian

The main peculiarity of Italian infinitive is the absence of persons, both singular and plural, inside its conjugation pattern.

Indeed, the infinitive mood has an impersonal function.

You can find three main conjugations:

Tenses of the infinitive mood

The infinito has two main tenses, present and past.

1. The present infinitive (infinito presente) is the basic, undeclensed form of the verb with -are, -ere or -ire endings (i.e. [to] + [verb]);

2. The past infinitive (infinito passato) is formed by the auxiliary (essere or avere) and the past participle of the specific verb (e.g. [to] + [auxiliary] + [past participle]).

Past infinitive: the choice of the auxiliary

The Italian infinito passato chooses the auxiliary following the verb nature or the contexts rule:

• avere (to have), for the active sentences and for transitive verbs;
• essere (to be), for the passive sentences and for pronominal and impersonal verbs.

Let's see some verbs that could occur both in active and passive sentences.

How to use the Italian infinitive

The infinitive mood can have both nominal and verbal values.

Independent clauses

In the main clause, the infinitive in Italian can express:

• an order or a prohibition for everyone: e.g. Non fumare! (Don't smoke);
• a doubt or a desire in interrogative or exclamative sentences: e.g. Che fare? (What's to be done?).

Dependent clauses

This use often occurs in the implicit sentences to convey several message that can be expressed explicitly by the subjunctive mood.

The present infinitive usually specify a contemporaneity relation between sentences. The past infinitive instead specifies an anteriority relation.

Hence, below you can find the main dependent clauses in which the infinitive occurs.