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Marix998 Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

To have seen/Having seen the Taj Mahal in the early morning sunlight will always be something I shall never forget.

Hi,I was wandering about the sentence below:I have recently returned from India. To have seen the Taj Mahal in the early morning sunlight will always be something I shall never forget.(http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv249.shtml)Could I rewrite this sentence and change To have seen to Having seen. Is it possible? I have recently returned from India. Having seen the Taj Mahal in the early morning sunlight will always be something I shall never forget.In other words when to use: to have past participle and having past participlethank youm
  

Top answer

It is a basic grammatical rule that both the infinitive (to see, to have seen) and the gerund (seeing, having seen) can occur as the subject of a clause. Therefore, both are correct in your sentence. Native speakers don't often use the infinitive as the subject but prefer the gerund : Seeing is believing.

— Cool Breeze

  • It is a basic grammatical rule that both the infinitive (to see, to have seen) and the gerund (seeing, having seen) can occur as the subject of a clause.
  • Therefore, both are correct in your sentence.
  • Native speakers don't often use the infinitive as the subject but prefer the gerund : Seeing is believing.
  • The fact that an infinitive is less common than a gerund doesn't mean that an infinitive is wrong, though.
  • In your example the infinitive looks and sounds particularly appealing compared with the gerund because having seen can also be a participle in other contexts and the participial usage is much more common.
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3 Answers
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It is a basic grammatical rule that both the infinitive (to see, to have seen) and the gerund (seeing, having seen) can occur as the subject of a clause. Therefore, both are correct in your sentence.

Native speakers don't often use the infinitive as the subject but prefer the gerund: Seeing is believing. The fa
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Thank you for your response,

Is there any difference in meaning between To have seen/Having seen the Taj Mahal in the early morning sunlight will always be something I shall never forget.

To have lost/
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Not for me. However, Having lost used as a gerund, not as a participle, at the beginning leads me to consider it a participle because a participle is much more common in initial position. I think an infinitive makes it easier to understand the sentence correctly because infinitives are not used in this position to introduce a clause equivalent, or a reduced clause as many native speakers
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