to be awarded/ to have been awarded

Question

He was the first British writer to be awarded / to have been awarded the Nobel prize for literature.why sometimes two forms of the infinitive can be used, like for example in this case?

Terryxpress · Accepted Answer

What do you notice is the difference between:

…and the only mathematician so far to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, was rather fond of expressing himself paradoxically.
O'Neill received four Pulitzer Prizes for his work and is still today the only American playwright to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The first ...
Meanwhile, Soyinka remains the only Sub-Saharan Black African to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. While J M Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer ...

and

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was a British author and poet. He was the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
Jean Giraudoux - Wounded twice in the First World War, he was the first writer to be awarded the Legion of Honor in wartime,
Read each of the entries very carefully.

CalifJim · Answer

TerryxpressWhat do you notice is the difference between ... and ...?
Read each of the entries very carefully.

OK. I give.

It can't have anything to do with a difference in tense, because all are in the past tense.

It can't be "about a living person" vs "about a dead person", because there's at least one dead person in each list.

It can't be the "first" vs "only" distinction, because you can easily find thousands of examples that go both ways. I even found two different newspaper articles on the same subject which expressed the same thought in these ways:

Dolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.
Dolly, a Finn-Dorset ewe, was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell.

Surely we don't think one is grammatical and the other isn't, do we?
_______________

So even after reading carefully, as advised, I'm stumped. I think you'll have to spell it out for us dummies.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymous He was the first British writer to be awarded / to have been awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

Why can ~~sometimes~~ two forms of the infinitive ~~can~~ sometimes be used, as ~~like~~ for example in this case?

I'd say it's because those two forms have the same meaning in this context, and I think that the previous poster may be hinting that the relevant context is one in which there is a claim of uniqueness for the referent of the noun to be modified by the infinitive. That seems reasonable, but I can't say that I'm completely certain about it.

CJ

Terryxpress · Answer

CalifJim:
No... one is the passive voice infinitive, and the other uses the Perfect infinitive, for all the reasons that Present Perfect is used instead of Past Tense, and required in those examples. But if you would like to continue...

...because now, from the 'anonymous' posters reply, we both have a good sense that the poster is either a very advanced learner, or native speaker wishing to understand this grammatical structure - which makes explaining this far more easy, and you can pitch your explanation accordingly.

Canadian45 · Answer

It seems to me that this may be another instance of a speaker of British English saying that 'only perfect tense is correct here'.

Terryxpress · Answer

canadian45
It seems to me that this may be another instance of a speaker of British English saying that 'only perfect tense is correct here'.
I was not asked which is the CORRECT tense to use, but the DIFFERENCE between the tenses.
I obtained some examples from the Internet to be used (PLEASE NOTE:I did not write 'to have been used') in my explanation. How can I be saying that only Perfect Tense is correct here, when I am drawing on other people's use of both tense forms, to show the difference? That isn't logical.

So..........no.

Wouldn't it have been better to delay your comment until I had at least said enough to justify your comment on my intent, rather than speculating?
I notice you didn't reply to the poster's question yourself instead.

CalifJim · Answer

TerryxpressI was not asked which is the CORRECT tense to use, but the DIFFERENCE between the tenses.

Actually, the original question was: Why can you sometimes use either one?

And I still can't figure out the answer. Personally, I'd like to know even more, namely,

Under what conditions can you use either one?
And under what conditions can you not use either one?

CJ

Terryxpress · Answer

Am I to understand that this is how this forum operates?
I have to push the original poster's query aside to address YOUR questions?
Will I then have some barrage from Canadian45 to answer?

I withdraw, to allow both of you to respond to this poster in the ways that you feel are more fitting than my 'British intent' as a pusher of the Present Perfect.

CalifJim · Answer

TerryxpressAm I to understand that this is how this forum operates?I have to push the original poster's query aside to address YOUR questions?

Hey, hey, hey!!! Calm down. I just thought it would be an interesting discussion.

And yes, that's how a forum operates. Let's have a discussion, not just "They ask the questions; we answer the questions. Next, please."

If you're not interested, just don't reply, for goodness sake.

CJ

Terryxpress · Answer

CalifJIm: I just thought it would be an interesting discussion.

I hadn't begun my explanation to the poster, yet you thought it a good idea for us to have 'a discussion', answering your questions instead?

I have no more to say here. Please - you take over and tutor this poster on the difference.

to be awarded/ to have been awarded

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