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Grammarian-bot Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

What does Perfect Infinitive describe?

0 I have searched a lot on google about perfect infinitive and have found many pages but none with proper explanation. Actually what intrigues me is that what does the the difinition "Perfect Infinitive is used for an action, idea, or condition occurring before that of another verb." mean. Consider an example;02br
02br
01i00The coach 01u00is02u00 happy 01font00to have made02font00 Sally a team member.02br
02i02br
00Now 01i00is happy 02i00is the verb and 01i00to have made 02i00is the perfect infinitive. By definition, 01i00is happy 02i00is occuring after 01i00to have made02i00. Does this mean that the coach first made sally a part of the team and was then happy due to X,Y,Z reasons. 02br
02br
00Now consider another couple of exampes. 02br
01ol
    01li
  1. 01i00I hoped to have succeeded. 02i00(H.W Flower Manual)02li
    2. 01li
  2. 01i00I would like to have seen the Taj Mahal when I was in India. 02i02li
    3. 02ol
00According to H.W Flower, the first one means that I hoped to succeed but I did not. From this one, we can infer that the second could be interpretted as I wanted to see Taj Mahal (when I was in India) but I didn't. Ok if we take this interpretation for granted then how does the definition (described above) could apply on these interpretation.02br
00Please explain in detail.02br
02br
00GB0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 01font 00I have searched a lot on google about perfect infinitive and have found many pages but none with proper explanation. " mean. 02br 02i 02br 00Now 01i 00is happy 02i 00is the verb and 01i 00to have made 02i 00is the perfect infinitive.

— Clive

  • 02br 02br 01font 00I have searched a lot on google about perfect infinitive and have found many pages but none with proper explanation.
  • " mean.
  • 02br 02i 02br 00Now 01i 00is happy 02i 00is the verb and 01i 00to have made 02i 00is the perfect infinitive.
  • By definition, 01i 00is happy 02i 00is occuring after 01i 00to have made02i 00.
  • Does this mean that the coach first made sally a part of the team and was then happy due to X,Y,Z reasons.
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4 Answers
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0Hi,02br
02br
00This is currently being discussed in a thread called 01b00The infinitive and the past infinitive02b00.02br
02br
01font00I have searched a lot on google about perfect infinitive and have found many pages but none with proper explanation. Actually what intrigues me is that what does the the dif
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0 The thread referred to by Clide is this one:02br
050040pid344641
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1i00Perfect infinitive is used quiet frequently in natural daily conversations.02i02br
02br
01i00<<<The coach 01u00is02u00 happy 00to have made00 Sally a team member>>>02i02br
02br
01i00Similarly, the following are constructed with the same pattern.02i02br
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0Hi,02br
02br
00Thanks for the examples, Goodman.02br
02br
00However, you need to say something like 01i00 “Last time I talked to Paul, he felt 01b00confident about having02b00 the proto type01b00 02b00completed for customer inspection”.02i02br
02br
00Such adjectives can
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