To-infinitive replacing with a complete clause

Question

1. I got in the kitchen and ate a sandwitch.
2. Getting in the kitchen, I ate a sandwitch.
3. To get in the kitchen, I ate a sandwitch.

I'd like to know if I can rephrase #1 as either #2 or #3.
Thank you in advance for your help.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

park sang joonI'd like to know if I can rephrase #1 as either #2 or #3.

#2 is a possible rephrasing; #3 is not.

#3 says that you had to eat a sandwich in order to get in the kitchen. If you didn't eat a sandwich, you would not be able to get in the kitchen. This is a very unusual situation.

CJ

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, Mr.Jim, for your so very kind answer.

To begin with, I'd like to ask you for understanding; I questioned the following on another site yesterday.

The protagonist is a royal member of Amber and one of the Courts of Chaos.
He just now met the ghost of the former king of Amber Oberon.
Now, the double of his father appeared, gone for so long time.

..............................
Now, for this thing?whatever it was?to pull this impersonation . . . I was more than a little irritated at such a patent attempt to manipulate my feelings.
["Knight of Shadows" of The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny]
I'd like to know if the underlined to-infinitive phrase means "this thing pulled this impersonation and" or the bold "it" refers to the underline phrase.

Teechr · Answer

park sang joonNow, for this thing?whatever it was?to pull this impersonation . . . I was more than a little irritated at such a patent attempt to manipulate my feelings.

Let's simplify that text. First, let's remove the "Now" which is just a filler. Then we can remove the "whatever it was." By the way, "it" refers to "this thing."
We end up with this:

park sang joonfor this thing to pull this impersonation . . . I was more than a little irritated at such a patent attempt to manipulate my feelings.

The typical and standard construction for that kind of sentence would be, e.g.,
For this thing to pull this impression was really annoying and manipulative.

If we switch the parts of that sentence around and insert a dummy "it", we get:
It was really annoying and manipulative for this thing to pull this impression.

In this case, however, the author has taken (some kind of) literary license and decided to write the text as they did.
Does that help?

CalifJim · Answer

park sang jooninfinitive phrase

A full infinitive phrase (Some say "infinitive clause") has the pattern shown below. (The object is optional.)

FOR [subject] TO [verb (object)]

I've heard it called a "for-to" clause. It's a non-finite construction which can be used in a sentence where a subject or object is used.

[For this thing to pull this impersonation] irritated me. [non-finite clause as subject]
~
I was irritated [that this thing pulled this impersonation]. [finite clause as complement]

CJ

To-infinitive replacing with a complete clause

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