88 A SPANISH REFERENCE GRAMMAR

la hierba; aman a Juan; or by the active with uno or gente as subject: uno corta la hierba; la gente ama a Juan. See 394. 408.

E. MOOD. Mood is the manner or way in which the action or state of the verb is expressed. There are five moods of the Spanish verb: the infinitive (el infinitivo), the indicative (el indicativo), the potential (el potencial), the subjunctive (el subjuntivo), and the imperative (el imperativo). The last named four are finite moods. In addition, similarly to the infinitive (in that they lack limitation as to time, person and number) are to be considered the gerund (gerundio), the present participle (partic pio activo), and the past or passive participle (participio pasivo). 409.

F THE INFINITIVE The infinitive is the verb unlimited as to time (tense), person, or number. 410.

I. All Spanish verbs end in -ar, -er, or -ir. See Apendice for conjugation of regular and irregular verbs. 411.

2. The infinitive may be simple or compound (perfect) hab ar, to speak; haber hablado, to have spoken. 412.

3. The infinitive may be used as a verbal noun, either as subject, predicate nominative, or object. As such it may be accompanied by the definite article, masculine (see 136), especially if it is a subject with modifiers

THE INFINITIVE   89

and comes first in the sentence: el escribir bien una Carta es dificil, writing (to write) well a letter is difficult (but, es dificil escribir, etc.); siento haberlo dicho, I regret having said it. Note that no preposition is used to introduce an infinitive used as a noun; also that in English the present participle frequently is used as a verbal noun, a construction impossible in Spanish, in which language the infinitive is the only verbal noun. 413.

4. The infinitive, not the gerund, must be used after a preposition: sin verme, without seeing me. But see 451. 414.

5. The infinitive may be used as the complement or modifier of an adjective or noun: eso es facil de hacer, that is easy to do; tengo la intenciOn de hacer eso, I intend to do that. The connecting preposition is usually de, especially after the adjectives digno, worthy, facil, easy, and dificil, difficult; but para is sometimes so employed: bueno para comer, good to eat; permiso para hacerlo, permission to do it. Eso es facil de hacer, that is easy to do; here the infinitive is used as the complementary modifier of the adjective. Es facil hacer eso, it is easy to do that; here the infinite is the noun subject of es. Note that the infinitive often has a passive significance in the construction adjective or ser + preposition -I- infinitive: Mal de hacer, easy to be