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Jooney Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
Infinitive clause
Hi,
The only broad lesson to be drawn from these unusual cases is that prospects outside of college do matter: if you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – say you are one of the lucky teenagers selected by the entrepreneur Peter Thiel to receive $100,000 in exchange for skipping college and pursuing your dreams– then by all means go for it.
Let me first simplify the sentence in bold a little bit:
You are one of the lucky teenagers to be selected by him to receive the money.
In my opinion, the underlined part as a whole is functioning as a modifier of the nominal "lucky teenagers". And it is a passive counterpart of the following sentence:
He selected a teenager to receve the money.(active)
A teenager was selected by him to receive the money.(passive)
Merging the passive version and the clause "You are one of the luck teenagers" into one yields the above sentence.
Q1) Do I have a correct assessment of the sentence structure?
Q2) How should I go about interpreting the meaning of "He selected a teenager to receive the money."? He selected a teenager so that(in order that) he/she could receive the money. Is this what it means?
I'd appreciate your answer.
The only broad lesson to be drawn from these unusual cases is that prospects outside of college do matter: if you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – say you are one of the lucky teenagers selected by the entrepreneur Peter Thiel to receive $100,000 in exchange for skipping college and pursuing your dreams– then by all means go for it.
Let me first simplify the sentence in bold a little bit:
You are one of the lucky teenagers to be selected by him to receive the money.
In my opinion, the underlined part as a whole is functioning as a modifier of the nominal "lucky teenagers". And it is a passive counterpart of the following sentence:
He selected a teenager to receve the money.(active)
A teenager was selected by him to receive the money.(passive)
Merging the passive version and the clause "You are one of the luck teenagers" into one yields the above sentence.
Q1) Do I have a correct assessment of the sentence structure?
Q2) How should I go about interpreting the meaning of "He selected a teenager to receive the money."? He selected a teenager so that(in order that) he/she could receive the money. Is this what it means?
I'd appreciate your answer.
Top answer
" which is why you see the infinitive in this case. It is a future conditional construction. If "say" was not there, you would be correct in your assessment, but that was not the intention of this phrase as written.
- " which is why you see the infinitive in this case.
- It is a future conditional construction.
- If "say" was not there, you would be correct in your assessment, but that was not the intention of this phrase as written.
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3 Answers
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When you simplified the sentence you changed the meaning/tense.The phrase "Say you are...." is meant to function like "suppose" or "if you were" in that case you would say "if you were to be...." which is why you see the infinitive in this case. It is a future conditional construction. If "say" was not there, you would be correct in your assessment, but that was not the intention of this phras
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jooneyQ1) Do I have a correct assessment of the sentence structure?Yes.
jooneyQ2) How should I go about interpreting the meaning of "He selected a teenager to receive the money."? He selected a teenager so that(in order that) he/she could receive the money. Is this what it means?Yes. That seems reasonable.
CJ
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