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This chapter argues that to in Old English is semantically occupying the same niche as the subjunctive ending (or, for Present-day English, the modal verb that has taken over the subjunctive function) and should be accommodated in the functional projection that accommodates the subjunctive ending and, later, the modals, say T(ense). This in effect means that there has been no change in the syntactic status of to since it stopped being a preposition in prehistoric times. In early Middle English, split infinitives become possible, a change triggered by the fact that the finite subjunctive was increasingly coming to be expressed by a free form (a modal verb) raising to T overtly, rather than by a bound form (a subjunctive ending), raising to T covertly. The overt movement of to brought it in line with the rest of its paradigm: the modal verbs.

This chapter discusses the rise of to-infinitival Exceptional Case-Marking (ECM) constructions as in, He believes the results to be unscientific, in late Middle English. It argues that a distinction should be made between the construction after verbs like want (I want you to do it), which appears to arise out of a reanalysis of the to-infinitive as THEME with verbs of commanding and permitting, and the construction after verbs like believe (‘the verbs of thinking and declaring’). It is argued that emergence of ECMs with believe-verbs is connected with changes in information structure causes by the loss of verb-second. The register restriction on this type of ECM, as well as the restriction on embedded subjects (witness *They alleged the results to be unscientific), appears to suggest that the construction is still outside the core grammar of English and requires additional routines (viruses) that are acquired after the core grammar is in place.

This chapter argues that the to-infinitive cannot be analysed as a prepositional phrase in Old English. Its distribution is no longer that of a to-PP, its dative inflection has fossilized and does not behave like the dative inflection found on true N-heads, and it takes accusative objects rather than the genitive objects that would be expected if it was still nominal. Evidence from relative clauses, the position of the to-infinitival object, and the emergence of an overt complementizer — for — in early Middle English all argue for clausal rather than phrasal status. The most telling piece of evidence is the fact that the to-infinitive has entered into competition with the finite subjunctive clause and can be seen to gradually oust it in a number of environments. All the available evidence suggests that the to-infinitive was being analyzed as a non-finite subjunctive already in OE.

This final chapter wraps up the main conclusions of the book: the origin of the to-infinitive and its reanalysis as a non-finite subjunctive clause, and its rise and spread at the expense of the finite subjunctive clause. It also reflects on wider issues to do with the interpretation of historical linguistic data, especially the absence of certain constructions (the problem of ‘negative evidence’) and how we can make the most of the data we have. The key to these problems is not to look at syntactic constructions in isolation, but to focus on their function in the language. This means that historical linguists sometimes have to cast their nets wide and look at other fields — discourse, theories of textual cohesion, translation studies, and pragmatics — in order to find the answers to syntactic problems.