grammar for graduate students lecture 5 gerunds & infinitives
TRANSCRIPT
Grammar for Graduate StudentsLecture 5
Gerunds & Infinitives
The Gerund:
5
Uses
• Subject of a verb Smoking is bad for you.
• Object of a verb Do you like cooking?
• Complement of ‘to be’ His favourite activity is watching television.
5Uses
• After prepositions. She is very good at listening to people.
• After determiners (a, the, this, some, a lot of)
The bombing of civilians horrified everyone.
• After possessive adjectives, object pronouns or nouns
I hope you don’t mind his/him/John coming here.
5Uses
• After adjectives Regular swimming is very good for you. It was awful working there.
• In certain expressions It’s no use trying to help her. Is this for peeling vegetables? How about going out for dinner? There are some jobs I hate, like washing and
ironing the laundry. We usually go fishing at the weekend. No smoking.
5Note
• Gerunds can take objects & can be qualified by adverbs
I enjoy reading new books. You should stop working so hard.
• The negative gerund form is not + gerund
It’s nice not being at work.
The Infinitive:
5
Uses
• After certain verbs They agreed to come.
• After certain verbs + person (object) I asked her to come here.
• After ‘to be’ My first thought was to pone you.
5Uses
• To express purpose I came here to tell you the good news.
• After ‘be’ + adjective ( + of + noun/pronoun) It was nice to see you. It’s kind of you to help me. She’s very keen to do the course.
• After the first/second/last/only/best ( and other superlative adjectives) +
noun/pronoun one He was the only one to die.
The Infinitive:
5
Uses
• After noun/pronoun to which infinitive relates
There’s a lot of work to do. I’ve got a few people to see.
• After verbs of knowing & believing I know him to be an honest man. (V+O+inf.) He is known to be an honest man. (passive) We consider it to be our duty. (V+O+inf.) It is considered to be our duty. (passive)
• After ‘to be’ My first thought was to pone you.
5Uses
• After verb + question word I didn’t know what to do.
• After too + adjective and after adjective + enough
He is to ill to come. The garden isn’t big enough to play games in.
• After is/are to describe future events He is to become Mayor next month.
5Note
• Infinitives can take objects & can be qualified by adverbs
He expects to win the race easily.
• The negative gerund form is not + gerund
He agreed not to tell anyone.
Verb + Infinitive / Verb + Gerund
5
• Infinitive after verb for future events after the main verb (often with
expect/hope/promise/want) I hope to see you next week.
• Gerund after verb describes an activity. It does not imply a time sequence.
We enjoyed playing tennis lat weekend.