welcome back to another lesson from your two-minute teacher in this lesson I'm going to explain infinitives and infinitive phrases infinitive is easy to spot whenever the word to precedes a verb in its basic form you're probably looking at an infinitive to run to laugh to ride to fall an infinitive Confunction as an adjective a noun or an adverb here are two examples of infinitives being used as nouns to run was his passion the infinitive to run is the subject of was he likes to run the infinitive to run is the direct object of legs here is an example of an infinitive functioning as an adjective give the dog a bone to chew since the infinitive to chew is modifying the bone it is functioning as an adjective in this example the infinitive is acting as an adverb the soldier returned to help since the infinitive to help modifies the verb returned it is acting like an adverb an infinitive phrase is the basic form of a verb plus any complements and modifiers which usually take the form of direct objects and adverbs here's an example she likes to write the words quickly the infinitive is to right the direct object is the words and the modifier is quickly let's do a quick revieww when two precedes a verb in its basic form it's an infinitive when you add a direct object and any other compliments or modifiers to the infinitive you form an infinitive phrase that's all for today's lesson from your two-minute teacher created using pun