Transcript Gerunds & Infinitives

Gerunds & Infinitives
Grammar for Graduate Students
Lecture 5
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The Gerund:
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.
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Uses
• 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.
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Uses
• 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.
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Note
• 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.
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The Infinitive:
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.
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Uses
• 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.
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The Infinitive:
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)
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Uses
• 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.
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Note
• 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.
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Verb + Infinitive / Verb + Gerund
• 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.