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Debarghya Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

Usage of Infintive or gerund

We must strive to protect nature and help maintain harmony in the world around us

Is it possible to use help maintaining or help to maintain in place of the help maintain?

Is there any difference in meaning and usage?

(Sorry, but the difference in their meaning is not very clear to me )

Thank you!

  

Top answer

We must strive to protect nature and help maintain harmony in the world around us. No, here the gerund-participle "maintaining" does not satisfy the complement requirement of "help", which is for an infinitival clause. "Help" is one of a few verbs that can take a bare infinitival or a to -infinitival complement, so either "to maintain" or just "maintain" is fine.

  • We must strive to protect nature and help maintain harmony in the world around us.
  • No, here the gerund-participle "maintaining" does not satisfy the complement requirement of "help", which is for an infinitival clause.
  • "Help" is one of a few verbs that can take a bare infinitival or a to -infinitival complement, so either "to maintain" or just "maintain" is fine.
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2 Answers
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We must strive to protect nature and help maintain harmony in the world around us.

No, here the gerund-participle "maintaining" does not satisfy the complement requirement of "help", which is for an infinitival clause.

"Help" is one of a few verbs that can take a bare infinitival or a to-infinitival complement, so either "to maintain" or just "maintain" is fine

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The to-infinitive or bare infinitive is by far the most common verb form following "help." These forms are required in your example.

You will see rare sentences when the present participle follows "help." In these cases the sentence has the modal auxiliary, can, and is negated. Here are some examples:

He cannot help seeing the worst in every situation. 
She bel

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