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Hi, guys~ This is William. Below are two questions that confuse me. Looking forward to your detailed explanations. Thanks in advance~
1. ____________ the work, they have to stay there for another two weeks.
A.Not finishing B. Not finished C. Not having finished D. Having not finished
The best answer is C. Why not A? What’s the difference between A and C?

2. It is said that there are plenty of hotels in that town. There _______ be any difficulty for you to find somewhere to stay.
A. wouldn’t B. mustn’t C. shouldn’t D. needn’t
The best answer is C. Why not A? What’s the difference between A and C?

Philip · Accepted Answer

1. You need the past form of the construction.
2. Shouldn't indicates probability, not certainty.
[ Consider: Now that you have mastered Spanish, you shouldn't have any problems learning Italian. ]

CalifJim · Answer

William Pei1. __________ the work, they have to stay there for another two weeks.A.Not finishing B. Not finished C. Not having finished D. Having not finished ...difference between A and C?

C is better because it shows more clearly that they have not finished the work yet. (Note the word 'having' in choice C.)

A sounds more to me like it should be like this: Not finishing the work, they will have to stay .... It isn't as clearly in the past.

It's almost as if

not finishing ~ because they are not going to finish
not having finished ~ because they have not yet finished

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

William Pei2. It is said that there are plenty of hotels in that town. There _____ be any difficulty for you to find somewhere to stay.A. wouldn’t B. mustn’t C. shouldn’t D. needn’tThe best answer is C. Why not A? What’s the difference between A and C?

To my ear, wouldn't is the wrong tense. It also implies conditionality, which is not present in the meaning, and there's no if-clause.

won't is possible, but it's not a choice.

There won't be any difficulty ~ I am certain that there will not be any difficulty
There shouldn't be any difficulty ~ I don't expect that there will be any difficulty

CJ

William Pei · Answer

Thank you for your explanation, Philip!

William Pei · Answer

Convinced. Thank you, CJ~

William Pei · Answer

Hi, CJ~ It's so good to have you answer my question. You answered my question last time and I was very impressed. Thank you for your detailed explanation. But, what I want to make sure is: how can we replace the two choices with other structures? Not having finished the work, they have to...=Becase they haven't finished the work, they have to...?
Not finishing the work, they have to...=If they don't finish the work, they have to...? Another question is: does the word "finishing" itself implies future action? eg: I am finishing it. Does it mean "I am finishing it now" or "I will finish it later"?

CalifJim · Answer

William Peihow can we replace the two choices with other structures? Not having finished the work, they have to...=Because they haven't finished the work, they have to...?Not finishing the work, they have to...=If they don't finish the work, they have to...?

Your first paraphrase, with 'because', is very good. That's the meaning.

Your second paraphrase, with 'if', is possible, but it's difficult to paraphrase that sentence at all because of the "have to" instead of "will have to". There is a sort of mismatch or imbalance created by the combination of "not finishing" and "have to". The whole sentence should be If they don't finish the work, they will have to ..., but 'will' was not part of the original question.

Besides that, it's difficult to assign a meaning to phrases like "not finishing", "not winning", "not arriving", and similar phrases at the beginning of a sentence. I would speculate (I don't know for certain) that it's because they contain verbs that indicate an action that takes place at an instant in time (finish, win, arrive, ...). These are almost always expressed as "not having finished", "not having won", "not having arrived", etc.

In the case of this sentence, the point in time must already have passed when the finishing should have happened before the situation in the main clause can apply, and the ideas of "has already passed" and "should have happened" are expressed by "(not) having".

Similar sentences:

Not having won the race, Jerry was very disappointed.
Not having arrived on time, the children were scolded.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

William PeiAnother question is: does the word "finishing" itself implies future action? eg: I am finishing it. Does it mean "I am finishing it now" or "I will finish it later"?

'finishing' itself is timeless. It expresses only the abstract idea. It is like 'to finish' in this way. Verb forms that show a specific time are called finite forms. Those like 'finishing' and 'to finish' are called non-finite forms, meaning 'without time', 'without tense'.

That said, verbs like 'finish', 'arrive', etc., which I told you about in an earlier post, (called "achievement verbs"), are unusual in the continuous tenses. They indicate that the action of the verb is about to happen. They focus on the period of time before the action is completed.

The plane is landing. ~ The plane is about to land. The plane is in a process which will end in its being on the ground.
The man is dying. ~ The man is about to die. The man is in a process which will end in his being dead.
Our team is winning! ~ Our team is about to win. Our team is in a process which will end in their being winners.

So "I am finishing it" means "I am about to finish it" / "I am now performing actions that will end in its being finished". It does not mean "I will finish it later". That means that I am doing nothing now, but I will begin to do something later that will end in its being finished.

Note, however, that the continuous tense can also indicate futurity, so you can have a situation like this:

— Aren't you going to finish your essay tonight?
— No. I'm finishing it tomorrow. (= I'm going to finish it tomorrow.)

So you have to pay attention to the context, and to the adverbs (tomorrow), to work out which meaning is intended.

CJ

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