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paco2004
#88295 Fri, 08 Apr 05 08:59 PM
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Hello Skater
I am sorry for asking such a rude question. I'm a bit surprised to hear the opinion for 'one's doing' from a true native speaker like you. When I was a school boy (JFK was your President at that time), I was taught in English class we should use the form of 'one's doing', for example, in the phrase like 'be afraid of one's doing'. But when I used it in speaking or writing to native speakers, I was almost always told by them to correct 'one's doing' into 'one doing'. Indeed, it appears the majority of native speakers are using 'one doing'. I have tentatively surveyed by google search the use frequency of 'afraid of him getting' and 'afraid of his getting'. The result was 1010 hits for 'afraid of him getting' and 35 hits for 'afraid of his getting'. I don't say an expression used by a majority is a more grammatically correct. But as a beginner of English learning who has not abilities to decide which expression is more grammatical, I am making it my principle to follow the majority side in such a choice.
paco
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Joined on
Wed, Nov 17 2004
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In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.
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MrPedantic
#88318 Fri, 08 Apr 05 11:38 PM
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It's interesting that the [pronoun + ING] formation has such currency. I wonder what speakers have to gain by using it, if it's simply incorrect. I myself feel a difference between 'his whispering' and 'him-whispering', for instance, which may well be a useful difference; and while the former is undoubtedly a gerund, the latter has the more 'charged' feel of a participle, to my mind.
(But as I've often found in this forum, people feel grammar very differently. I'm not sure we'll get to the bottom of it, till we've first discovered which parts of the brain light up with a gerund, and which with a participle.)
MrP
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Joined on
Tue, Oct 12 2004
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...opella forensis / adducit febris...
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CalifJim
#88366 Sat, 09 Apr 05 03:42 AM
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Have we considered thoroughly enough the possibility that what is to blame for this conundrum is the poverty of terminology for talking about such structures. I mean, why should it have to be either a participle or a gerund? Just because textbooks don't use a term like "geriple" or "particiund"?
If we can have clauses with accusative subjects when the verb is an infinitive ("I want them to help me."), why not clauses with accusative subjects when the verb is an "-ing" - another non-finite form ("I like them helping me.") ?
Strangely, sometimes a structure becomes more acceptable just because it has a name! Right?
CJ
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Joined on
Mon, Aug 2 2004
California
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"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche
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MrPedantic
#88437 Sat, 09 Apr 05 12:19 PM
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I've seen 'fused participle', and 'gerundive participle. But 'geriple' is much happier.
Moreover, it doesn't google, so I think you can claim priority with this thread, CJ. (Would examples of geriples be geriplets, I wonder.)
There seem to be different kinds of geriple, too:
1. If you don't mind me asking,...?
Changing 'me asking' to 'my asking' doesn't seem to make much difference to the meaning here; and 'my asking' doesn't sound stilted, as some 'possessive + gerund' constructions do. (There are 20000 googles for 'my', against 48000 for 'me'.)
In these examples, though:
2. Provide therefore for this being done without delay...
3. The timeframe for this being done...
– it's difficult to possessivify the geriple ('this's being done'?).
'Being done' isn't an ordinary participle, either; it seems to do more here than qualify 'this'.
(For instance, it can't be expanded to 'for this which is being done', or 'for this when it is being done': it means 'for this-being-done'. You might almost say that 'this' qualifies 'being done'.)
I heard another example on the radio the other day:
4. Reporter to Polish mourner:
'What do you think of the Pope being buried in St Peter's?'
MrP
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CalifJim
#88558 Sun, 10 Apr 05 07:07 AM
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Without getting into a religious argument, if the Pope's soul is his being, then maybe it should be "What do you think of the Pope's being (being) buried in St. Peter's?" But then, the being wouldn't be being buried, would it? The being has either ceased to be or has gone to be some somewhere else. So in the practical matter of answering the question, I should think one would be outraged at the Pope's being (being) buried anywhere. They should all just leave it alone and give it a rest.
CJ
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paco2004
#88743 Mon, 11 Apr 05 01:24 AM
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Hello Teachers
On this occasion I would like to confirm a point that I am still not sure about, that is, the difference in meaning and usage between the two constructions;
(1) S+V+O+do; Betty saw Jack play in the park.
(2) S+V+O+doing; Betty saw Jack playing in the park.
I vaguely remember a grammar book said that (1) implies Betty saw Jack's action from its beginning to the end whereas (2) implies simply that Betty saw Jack when he was playing and doesn't connote anything about the duration of Betty's seeing Jack. Is it true?
paco
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MrPedantic
#88823 Mon, 11 Apr 05 11:18 AM
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Hello Paco
That seems fair; though I might slightly rephrase it thus:
1. S+V+O+do: used to emphasise the action as a whole.
2. S+V+O+doing: used to emphasise the action in progress.
e.g.
3. I saw Stanley Matthews play in 1958.
— sense of emphasis on the fact of seeing SM.
4. I saw Stanley Matthews playing in my local park.
— sense of emphasis on the 'playing' itself.
With #3, I get a vague picture of an overview of a stadium, 'the game as a whole', etc.
With #4, I get a picture of Stanley dribbling round a hapless amateur defender.
That said, I would guess that native speakers often use one when they mean the other!
MrP
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paco2004
#88864 Mon, 11 Apr 05 02:03 PM
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Hello Mr P
I'm glad to know my remembrance was not so bad. My grammar book explains the difference by the two example sentences as follows.
x (1) I saw him drown in the river but I rescued him.
o (2) I saw him drowning in the river but I rescued him.
According to the book, 'I saw him drown' means 'he was drowned', therefore it contradicts with 'I rescued him'.
We are taught about the sentence of type (1) a lot in grammar lessons, but it seems there are few occasions we can actually use it.
Anyway thank you so much. Your comments are always helpful.
paco
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Skater
#88920 Mon, 11 Apr 05 03:45 PM
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Paco, I too was taught the "one's doing" formulation in the sixties and have never stopped using it, and neither have any of my friends and family whom I consider careful speakers of English. I have also found it to be universally followed in American formal writing (anything from newspapers to scholarly publications). I have never found it awkward to use the same grammatical rules in speech as one would find in a scholarly article, but perhaps that's because I grew up in Berkeley and am now surrounded by fellow lawyers. If someone tried to persuade me to speak otherwise, I would be inclined to ignore it.
CailfJim, there needn't be a reason why English uses an accusative subject with an infinitive but a genitive with a gerund -- it just does. It is the same in Latin, which may account for why the English rule (at least in America) was settled the same way, although ultimately the reason Latin uses those rules is probably the same -- it just does.
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Joined on
Thu, Mar 31 2005
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