分離不定詞 (split_infinitive) の歴史については，以下の記事で取り上げてきた（あるいはこちらの記事セットを参照）．
・ 「#2992. 中英語における不定詞補文の発達」 ([2017-07-06-1])
・ 「#4976. 「分離不定詞」事始め」 ([2022-12-11-1])
・ 「#4977. 分離不定詞は14世紀からあるも増加したのは19世紀半ば」 ([2022-12-12-1])
・ 「#4979. 不定詞の否定として to not do も歴史的にはあった」 ([2022-12-14-1])
・ 「#4981. Reginald Pecock --- 史上最強の "infinitive-splitter"」 ([2022-12-16-1])
分離不定詞は，近代英語期半ばに一度下火となっていたが，18世紀末から19世紀にかけて徐々に復活を果たしてきた．とはいえ，必ずしも高頻度で用いられるようになったわけではない．もしかしたら19--20世紀にかけて少しずつ頻度が増していく可能性もあったかもしれないが，その可能性は規範文法家の猛烈な批判により潰されてしまったのである．19世紀中の経緯について Visser (Vol. 2, 1936--37) の解説を引用しよう．
When, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the usage was resuscitated in the written language, it soon spread with a remarkable rapidity, and in the nineteenth century it was to be found in the works of writers of every standing including several of great name. The usage, however, was of an occasional character so that one had to read hundreds of pages before finding an example. It is worth notice that one type of splitting, common in Middle English, was not revived, namely that with a (pro)noun between to and the infinitive, e.g. 'to hine finde', 'to þee defend', 'to temple go'.
The usage might have become general and more habitual instead of occasional in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but for the adverse judgment on it by grammarians. According to 1882 Fitzedw. Hall (On the Separation by a Word and Words of 'to' and the Infinitive) the earliest objection to this usage appeared in print in 1840), when Richard Taylor expressed his dissatisfaction with the idiom in the following words: "Some writers of the present day have a disagreeable affectation of putting an adverb between to' and the infinitive." In 1864 Dean Alford (The Queen's English p. 171) observes: "'To scientifically illustrate'. But surely this is a practice entirely unknown to English speakers and writers. It seems to me, that we ever regard the to of the infinitive as inseparable from its verb." In 1867 the idiom is also categorically condemned by Mason (English Grammar p. 181): "The to of an infinitive mood should never be separated from its verb by an adverb. Such phrases as, 'To rightly use', 'To really understand' are improper." It is noticeable that these early censurers, and many others with them for that matter, did not know of (or ignored?) the occurrence of the idiom in earlier English. The result of the disapproval so strongly expressed was that splitting the infinitives became one of the favourite taboos of the school-teacher, and that minor writers, or those that yet had to win themselves a name, afraid of running the risk of being censured for being ignorant of linguistic conventions, avoided it. Newspaper tradition used to be strong against splitting and sub-editors and correctors of the press were seduously (sic) watching for trespasses of this kind.
引用後半に "one of the favourite taboos of the school-teacher" とある通り，分離不定詞は，19世紀以来，英語に関する「不平不満の伝統」 (complaint_tradition) を最も典型的に体現する文法項目となったのである．
・ Visser, F. Th. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1963--1973.
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