Infinitive Clauses and Control

An infinitive clause is a clause built around an infinitive rather than a finite (tensed) verb: Hun lovte *å komme* ("she promised to come"). It packs a whole proposition — an action, its object, its modifiers — into a compact unit with no tense of its own and, usually, no visible subject. The trick is that the subject is still there, just understood, and working out who that silent subject is — a phenomenon linguists call control — is the heart of this page. We will also meet the for … å frame that lets the infinitive carry its own subject, the perfect infinitive for "having done," and the bare-infinitive construction after verbs of perception. For the basic uses of the infinitive (after modals, as a noun, with å), see infinitive uses.

Control: who does the infinitive's action?

When an infinitive has no stated subject, you have to recover it from the main clause. Norwegian, like English, follows two predictable patterns.

Subject control: the infinitive's silent subject = the subject of the main verb. The same person both does the main action and the infinitive action.

In Hun lovte å komme, there is only one person in sight — hun — and she is both the promiser and the comer. Verbs like love (promise), håpe (hope), prøve (try), bestemme seg (decide), nekte (refuse), glemme (forget) take subject control: the doer of the infinitive is the main subject.

Object control: the infinitive's silent subject = the object of the main verb. Someone gets told, asked, or allowed to do the infinitive's action — and they, not the main subject, do it.

In Jeg ba ham om å vente, the waiter is ham (the object), not jeg. Verbs like be (om) (ask), tillate (allow), oppfordre (urge), overtale (persuade), tvinge (force) take object control: the doer of the infinitive is the main object. Many of these — note especially be om — govern the infinitive through the preposition om å (see below).

The for … å frame: giving the infinitive its own subject

Sometimes the infinitive's subject is neither the main subject nor a main-clause object — it is a new person you need to name explicitly. Norwegian supplies this with the for + noun phrase + å + infinitive frame. This is structurally parallel to English "for X to Y", which makes it unusually learnable.

In Det er viktig *for deg å komme, the person who is to come is *deg — supplied by for — and it is neither some main subject (the subject is the dummy det) nor an object of a controlling verb. The frame is: for + the subject + å + the verb. English builds the same thing — important *for you to come — so the parallel is exact and reliable. The one thing English speakers drop is the *for itself: they write det er viktig deg å komme, which is ungrammatical. The infinitive's explicit subject must be introduced by for.

The perfect infinitive: å ha + supine

To express an action completed before the time of the main verb — "to have done" — Norwegian uses the perfect infinitive: å ha + supine. It is the infinitive equivalent of the present perfect, and it appears constantly after the prepositions etter ("after") and uten ("without").

The structure is å ha (infinitive of "have") + the supine of the main verb: å ha spist ("to have eaten"), å ha bestått ("to have passed"). Note especially etter å ha + supine — this is the standard, idiomatic Norwegian way to say "after doing / after having done" something, and it keeps the same subject as the main clause (it is subject-controlled). English speakers often try a finite clause here (etter at vi spiste), which is also possible but heavier; the infinitive etter å ha spist is crisper and more native.

The bare infinitive: perception and causative verbs (ECM)

After verbs of perception (se — see, høre — hear, kjenne — feel) and certain causatives (la — let, få — get/have, hjelpe — help), Norwegian uses a special construction: verb + object + bare infinitive (no å). The object is simultaneously the object of perception and the subject of the infinitive — linguists call this accusative-with-infinitive or ECM (exceptional case-marking).

Two things stand out. First, there is no å before the infinitive — it is så ham gå, not så ham *å gå*. The infinitive marker is dropped after perception and these causative verbs, exactly as English drops "to" after "see," "hear," "let," and "make" (*I saw him go*, not *I saw him to go). Second, the object pronoun is in the object form (*ham, henne, dem) even though it is the logical subject of the infinitive — that is what makes it "exceptional." English does the same: *I saw him go (not *he go).

Governed infinitives: om å and til å

Many verbs and adjectives govern the infinitive through a fixed preposition + å. The two commonest are om å and til å, and which one a word takes is largely lexical — you learn it with the word.

So be om å (ask to), bli enig om å (agree to), glede seg til å (look forward to), være flink til å (be good at) each lock in their preposition. There is no fully reliable rule for choosing om versus til versus bare å — it is a lexical property, like English's choice between "good at doing," "decide to do," "look forward to doing." Learn each governing word together with its preposition. For the infinitive marker itself, see the infinitive marker å.

Common Mistakes

When you name the infinitive's subject, introduce it with for: for deg å komme. Dropping the for — copying an English "to-infinitive" too literally — is ungrammatical.

After se, høre, kjenne, la, the infinitive is bare — no å. (English likewise drops the "to": I saw him cross, not I saw him to cross.)

The perfect-infinitive frame is etter å ha + supine. Don't splice in at; either use the full finite clause etter at vi hadde spist or the crisp infinitive etter å ha spist.

Be (ask) takes om å: be noen om å gjøre noe. The preposition is lexically required and easy to drop under English influence ("ask him to wait").

Glede seg takes til å. There is no general rule — om å, til å, and bare å are lexical; learn each verb with its preposition.

Key Takeaways

• An infinitive's silent subject is found by control: subject control (love, håpe → main subject does it) vs object control (be, tillate → main object does it).
• To give the infinitive its own named subject, use for + NP + å + infinitive (for deg å komme) — parallel to English "for X to Y"; never drop the for.
• The perfect infinitive is å ha + supine (etter å ha spist) — the idiomatic way to say "after having done."
• After perception and causative verbs (se, høre, kjenne, la), use verb + object + bare infinitive with no å (jeg så ham gå).
• Governed infinitives take a fixed preposition (om å, til å, or bare å) that you must learn with each word.