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Edwardfung Posted 17 years ago
Grammar
Gerund and to infinitive!
hi,
I have questions about the following 2 dialogs.
why they use gerund instead of to-infinitive after the adjective, 'she is busy', in the first dialog. I thought sentence with adjective like that should be followed by to-infinitive or gerund of the preposition, such as she is busy with washing up.
1) 'Where's Anne?'
'She's busy to do doing the washing up.'
The second question is why the gerund should be used here? why is it incorrected with to-infinitive?
2) 'The Government appear to have made up their minds at last.'
'It's about time! They've spent months to debate debating this issue.'
thank you very much
edward
I have questions about the following 2 dialogs.
why they use gerund instead of to-infinitive after the adjective, 'she is busy', in the first dialog. I thought sentence with adjective like that should be followed by to-infinitive or gerund of the preposition, such as she is busy with washing up.
1) 'Where's Anne?'
'She's busy to do doing the washing up.'
The second question is why the gerund should be used here? why is it incorrected with to-infinitive?
2) 'The Government appear to have made up their minds at last.'
'It's about time! They've spent months to debate debating this issue.'
thank you very much
edward
Top answer
1. Busy always takes the gerund : They were busy discussing the problem. Another similar adjective is like: There's nothing like eating when one is hungry.
- 1.
- Busy always takes the gerund : They were busy discussing the problem.
- Another similar adjective is like: There's nothing like eating when one is hungry.
- You can easily find these uses of the gerund in any grammar book.
- 2.
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8 Answers
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1. Busy always takes the gerund: They were busy discussing the problem. Another similar adjective is like: There's nothing like eating when one is hungry. You can easily find these uses of the gerund in any grammar book.
2. If the idea is to tell t
2. If the idea is to tell t
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Cool Breeze He spent a lot of time to learn English.Hi, CB. My good ol' instinct is letting me down here.
I'd say, "He spent a lot of time learning English." NOT "He spent a lot of time to learn English."
"It took him a long time to learn English." NOT "It took him a long time learning English."
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Some expressions take the infinitive; others take an -ing form.
There are no reasons. You have to memorize them as the patterns of English.
to be busy ---ing
to spend time ---ing
to have trouble ---ing
CJ
There are no reasons. You have to memorize them as the patterns of English.
to be busy ---ing
to spend time ---ing
to have trouble ---ing
CJ
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AvangiTo me, infinitive of purpose would be something like, "He married an American to learn English." "She went to do the laundry."
I'm not really into the theory of this stuff, but "to learn" seems like a bad example to me, because it can be viewed as an activity or as an accomplishment. The activity would require the gerund and the accomplishment would requir
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Cool BreezeWe spent a week there to assess the situation.But isn't it the intervening adverb that "saves" it?
?We spent a week to assess the situation.
CJ
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CalifJimCool BreezeWe spent a week there to assess the situation.But isn't it the intervening adverb that "saves" it?
?We spent a week to assess the situation.
My Helsinki English ear agrees with you there. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with He spent a lot of time to
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I´m afraid it IS wrong. "Spend time" can only be used in verb + gerund constructions or with further adverbial phrases. It´s a rule (it may change in the future, but for the moment, it sounds very wrong to a native ear any other way). It is like a transitive verb that must always be followed by an object - We can´t say "I took." for example. You´d have to say "I took it". So the options are:
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