Grammar for Graduate StudentsLecture 5

Gerunds & Infinitives

The Gerund:

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Uses

• Subject of a verb Smoking is bad for you.

• Object of a verb Do you like cooking?

• Complement of ‘to be’ His favourite activity is watching television.

5Uses

• After prepositions. She is very good at listening to people.

• After determiners (a, the, this, some, a lot of)

The bombing of civilians horrified everyone.

• After possessive adjectives, object pronouns or nouns

I hope you don’t mind his/him/John coming here.

5Uses

• After adjectives Regular swimming is very good for you. It was awful working there.

• In certain expressions It’s no use trying to help her. Is this for peeling vegetables? How about going out for dinner? There are some jobs I hate, like washing and

ironing the laundry. We usually go fishing at the weekend. No smoking.

5Note

• Gerunds can take objects & can be qualified by adverbs

I enjoy reading new books. You should stop working so hard.

• The negative gerund form is not + gerund

It’s nice not being at work.

The Infinitive:

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Uses

• After certain verbs They agreed to come.

• After certain verbs + person (object) I asked her to come here.

• After ‘to be’ My first thought was to pone you.

5Uses

• To express purpose I came here to tell you the good news.

• After ‘be’ + adjective ( + of + noun/pronoun) It was nice to see you. It’s kind of you to help me. She’s very keen to do the course.

• After the first/second/last/only/best ( and other superlative adjectives) +

noun/pronoun one He was the only one to die.

The Infinitive:

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Uses

• After noun/pronoun to which infinitive relates

There’s a lot of work to do. I’ve got a few people to see.

• After verbs of knowing & believing I know him to be an honest man. (V+O+inf.) He is known to be an honest man. (passive) We consider it to be our duty. (V+O+inf.) It is considered to be our duty. (passive)

• After ‘to be’ My first thought was to pone you.

5Uses

• After verb + question word I didn’t know what to do.

• After too + adjective and after adjective + enough

He is to ill to come. The garden isn’t big enough to play games in.

• After is/are to describe future events He is to become Mayor next month.

5Note

• Infinitives can take objects & can be qualified by adverbs

He expects to win the race easily.

• The negative gerund form is not + gerund

He agreed not to tell anyone.

Verb + Infinitive / Verb + Gerund

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• Infinitive after verb for future events after the main verb (often with

expect/hope/promise/want) I hope to see you next week.

• Gerund after verb describes an activity. It does not imply a time sequence.

We enjoyed playing tennis lat weekend.