| With the achievement of Universal Grammar as the theoretical basis, this thesis presents a contrast: the traditional English grammar describes infinitives as phrases while the Universal grammar describes them as clauses, and also a contrast between the non-finite clause and the finite that clause, and the application to the teaching of infinitives.According to Universal Grammar, the infinitive is a clause instead of a phrase described by the traditional grammar. A non-finite clause and a finite clause share many similarities and also have many differences in the IPs and the subject, but they function similarly in the sentence and can be transformed from each other. This transformation is very useful to solve problems that the students may come across.One of the main puzzles students may come across is why different verbs are followed by the infinitival complements of different structures. This thesis presents that the structure of infinitive is determined by the lexical entry of the verb and that the verbs with infinitival complements can be divided into four categories: V1 [ __ PRO-TP /…], V2 [ __ non-PRO-TP with to /…], V3 [ __ non-PRO-TP without to /…], V4 [ __ CP /…]. The introduction of the notion of lexical entry provides a way to explain the question.The other puzzle is the logical disagreement with the form: an active infinitive does not always mean actively; it can have the passive meaning, and it, meaning passively, is not definitely interchangeable with the passive infinitive. To determine the infinitival subject, this thesis suggests the transformation from the infinitive to that clause with the same D-structure. It is also pointed out that the infinitival subject can be a noun phrase in the main clause or in the context and can be an indefinite noun phrase when there is no noun phrase.The last chapter is a conclusion about the structure and the function of the infinitive.
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