Search results for 'tag:Gerunds tag:Commas' matching tags 'Gerunds' and 'Commas'

Re: CPE sentence transformation

Hoa Thai — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 01:16:36 GMT

Hi,

1. Attentively, he looks at each picture in the huge photo album to search for a familiar face that he can vaguely remember.
2. Attentively, he looks at each picture in the huge photo album searching for a familiar face that he can vaguely remember.

You wrote, âI wouldn't disagree with your suggestion that the second example here is better than the first. To me, 'searching' suggests a single activity that continues while perhaps hundreds of photos are looked at. On the other hand, 'to search' suggests a series of discrete activities that start/stop as each photo is looked at. The 'searching' activity with a long and single duration is obviously more intense.â That is also an instruction that we received from our teacher. Stretch was his keyword.

Now, regarding the two sentences you asked me to give some thought:

He ran as fast as he could, to try to win a gold medal.
He ran as fast as he could, trying to win a gold medal.

First, I think the comma weakens the entire sentence too drastically. We should remove the comma. Even without the comma, I still think the first one is better because the emotion is not strong in the main clause. Rule #1, âTo unleash the power of verb chose infinitive over gerund and noun phrases,â should be applied to add weight to the entire sentence.

However, letâs use âto try to winâ and âtrying to winâ in the two following sentences:

With the loving fatherâs image in his heart, John relentlessly pushes his body to the limit to try to win a gold medal.
With the loving fatherâs image in his heart, John relentlessly pushes his body to the limit trying to win a gold medal.

What do you think? To me, the second sentence is better using rule #2, âsoften the verb by using gerund to stretch a longing / yearning emotion.â In fact, the first one does not even flow well; somehow, its rhythm changes too sharply and abruptly when âto try to winâ arrives.

That said, I think you are right to suggest that we should use the word guideline instead of rule - a guideline with a merit though.

Thank you very much for spending your time discussing this with me. For me, it has been a good educational exercise and a great pleasure!

Hoa Thai

Re: infinitive vs gerund

CalifJim — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:37:18 GMT

The structure you're asking about contains a FOR ... TO ... clause, like this basic structure:

IT IS/WAS (not) [easy, hard, difficult, pleasant, exciting, ...]
FOR subject TO verb.
(Of course these are the subject and verb of the FOR ... TO ... clause -- not the subject and verb of the sentence.)

1. Basic structure:
It is easy for me to get up early.
It was unpleasant for Jane to lose her keys.
It's hard for Helen to remember all the instructions.

Substituting a gerund for the infinitive in this structure is not possible.

*It is easy for Helen remembering all the instructions.

2. You can leave out the subject by dropping the FOR part of the FOR ... TO ... clause. This makes the subject something like (for) anybody.

It's easy to understand the rule.
It's amusing to listen to the comedy hour on the radio.
It's frightening to be in an earthquake.

Substituting a gerund for the infinitive here is possible, but I think the infinitive is more often used.

It's hard finding a parking place at this hour.
It's fun watching football games.
It's not pleasant being the last in line.

3. You can move the FOR...TO... clause to the beginning, but it's less natural and is not used often.

For John to play football is exciting.
For him to make a web page is difficult.
For Sally to be late was embarrassing.

Substituting a gerund here can make for an awkward sentence because it suggests a different meaning from the same sentence with the infinitive.

a. For John playing football is exciting says that John finds playing football exciting (no matter who plays football). To make this meaning clear, a comma can be added (For John, playing football is exciting), but it's more common to leave the FOR phrase at the end (Playing football is exciting for John.) See 4, below.

b. For John to play football is exciting says that John's participation in football playing is exciting, i.e. the excitement occurs when John plays football, and it occurs in general -- for everybody.

See Footnote at the end of this post.

4: You can move just the TO ... part of the FOR ... TO ... clause to the beginning. Again, the infinitive at the beginning is not particularly natural, so this structure is not often used.

To play chess is boring for Susan.
To arrive early is not easy for me.
To give the speech was not easy for Donald.

Substituting a gerund for the infinitive is more natural here.

Playing chess is boring for Susan.
Arriving early is not easy for us.
Giving speeches is unpleasant for the students.

5. You can drop the FOR phrase and move the TO phrase to the beginning. Again, this is not the most natural structure.

To run barefoot in the grass is pleasant.
To pay bills on time is important.
To climb Everest is not easy.

Again, substituting a gerund is more natural.

Running barefoot in the grass is pleasant.
Paying bills on time is important.
Climbing Everest is not easy.

CJ

Footnote: This gets even more complicated when you realize that there are two possible FOR phrases: The FOR ... that shows the subject of the FOR ... TO ... clause and the simple prepositional phrase with FOR that shows the person or persons affected:

It was exciting for Peter for his grandfather to talk about the old times.
For Peter, it was exciting for his grandfather to talk about the old times.
For his grandfather to talk about the old times was exciting for Peter.

(The FOR that introduces the subject of the FOR ... TO ... clause is also called "complementizing for".)

Re: Is drifting her a gerund...how do you tell if a word is a gerund?

Grammarshammer — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:46:01 GMT

Since the participle directly follows the noun it modifies, my teacher would have told me to use a comma. But then again, I'm starting to notice that there is no definite way to punctuate participle phrases when they directly follow the word they modify. Some authors will only exclude the comma to avoid ambiguity, while others seem to never use it. I guess sometimes the use is at the authorsâ digression.

Re: Is drifting her a gerund...how do you tell if a word is a gerund?

Grammarshammer — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 04:53:11 GMT

So is drifting a participle in this sentence? If so, I wonder why it wasn't preceded by a comma? And yeah, I'm in 'Rado!

Part of speech identification

Eagerlearner — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:22:31 GMT

Hello, this is my first post here, I like to know these words
kilometer
centimeter

Are those words noun if they are standing alone ? if it's, what kind of noun it's, proper noun or abstract noun or etc ?

After that, I want to indentify the part of speech of the following sentence by using the stanford parser at http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/parser/index.jsp
if you input,
convert kilometer to centimeter
it gives convert/VB kilometer/NN to/TO centimeter/VB

if you input,
convert 2 kilometers to centimeter
it gives convert/VB 2/CD kilometers/NNS to/TO centimeter/NN

You can refer to the tagset below, my question is, is the first input grammatically correct ? if it's correct the part of speech given by the program seems to be incorrect because
the centimeter should be noun instead of Verb, or am I wrong ? If you add the "2" as the second input the program gives the correct part of speech tagging,
is it because my first input grammar is incorrect ? Thank you.

Reference
1. CC Coordinating conjunction 25.TO to
2. CD Cardinal number           26.UH Interjection
3. DT Determiner                27.VB Verb, base form
4. EX Existential there     28.VBD Verb, past tense
5. FW Foreign word              29.VBG Verb, gerund/present participle
6. IN Preposition/subord.     30.VBN Verb, past participle
218z     conjunction
7. JJ Adjective                 31.VBP Verb, non-3rd ps. sing. present
8. JJR Adjective, comparative    32.VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present
9. JJS Adjective, superlative    33.WDT wh-determiner
10.LS List item marker          34.WP wh-pronoun
11.MD Modal                     35.WP Possessive wh-pronoun
12.NN Noun, singular or mass    36.WRB wh-adverb
13.NNS Noun, plural              37. # Pound sign
14.NNP Proper noun, singular     38. $ Dollar sign
15.NNPS Proper noun, plural      39. . Sentence-final punctuation
16.PDT Predeterminer             40. , Comma
17.POS Possessive ending         41. : Colon, semi-colon
18.PRP Personal pronoun          42. ( Left bracket character
19.PP Possessive pronoun        43. ) Right bracket character
20.RB Adverb                    44. " Straight double quote
21.RBR Adverb, comparative       45. ` Left open single quote
22.RBS Adverb, superlative       46. " Left open double quote
23.RP Particle                  47. ' Right close single quote
24.SYM Symbol             48. " Right close double quote

Part of Speech identification

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:16:08 GMT

if you input,
convert 2 kilometers to centimeter
it gives convert/VB 2/CD kilometers/NNS to/TO centimeter/NN

You can refer to the tagset below, my question is, is the first input setence correct ? if it's correct the part of speech given by the program seems to be incorrect because
the centimeter should be noun instead of Verb, or am I wrong ? If you add the "2" as the second input the program gives the correct part of speech tagging,
it it because my first input grammar is incorrect ? Thank you.

Reference

1. CC  Coordinating conjunction  25.TO  to 
2. CD  Cardinal number           26.UH  Interjection 
3. DT  Determiner                27.VB  Verb, base form 
4. EX  Existential there   28.VBD Verb, past tense 
5. FW  Foreign word              29.VBG Verb, gerund/present participle 
6. IN  Preposition/subord.   30.VBN Verb, past participle 
218z     conjunction 
7. JJ  Adjective                 31.VBP Verb, non-3rd ps. sing. present 
8. JJR Adjective, comparative    32.VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present 
9. JJS Adjective, superlative    33.WDT wh-determiner 
10.LS  List item marker          34.WP  wh-pronoun 
11.MD  Modal                     35.WP  Possessive wh-pronoun 
12.NN  Noun, singular or mass    36.WRB wh-adverb 
13.NNS Noun, plural              37. #  Pound sign 
14.NNP Proper noun, singular     38. $  Dollar sign 
15.NNPS Proper noun, plural      39. .  Sentence-final punctuation 
16.PDT Predeterminer             40. ,  Comma 
17.POS Possessive ending         41. :  Colon, semi-colon 
18.PRP Personal pronoun          42. (  Left bracket character 
19.PP  Possessive pronoun        43. )  Right bracket character 
20.RB  Adverb                    44. "  Straight double quote 
21.RBR Adverb, comparative       45. `  Left open single quote 
22.RBS Adverb, superlative       46. "  Left open double quote 
23.RP  Particle                  47. '  Right close single quote 
24.SYM Symbol  48. "  Right close double quote

Re: HLEP ME PLEASE!!!

Feebs11 — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:00:09 GMT

Takchi_l wrote:
Please explain me the grammatical rule!!
1. The president's speaking remarks always come across much more powerfully than his published reports.

ricky: The president's speaking remarks always come across much more powerful than his published reports. Wrong - "powerfully" is an adverb modifying "come [across]"

2. The interviewees decided to give the applicants oppotunities to show what they knew about the publishing business.

ricky: I cannot find any error I am not certain is these were all wrong in the original, or whether you have perhaps mistyped.

3. When the contracts are ready, have them ____ to the purchasers. (be sent)

ricky: the answer is "be sent", why??? If this is really the required answer, it is wrong. The verb does not require "be", and could be either "sent" or "forwarded".

4. With one in two marriages ending in divorce, it is an increase in single-parent homes.

ricky: With one in two marriages ending in divorce, it is an increase in single-parent homes.

ricky: the answer is "it", please help me to understand Without a previous context, "it" is not usable here. "There" is a possible answer.

5. After attending a seminar on ommunicating Effectively at Work, Mr.Brown picked up some interesting pointers, __
made contact with several people who could possibly be potential clients. (as well as), also X

ricky: the answer is "as well as", can i replace it with "also"? if NO, why not?? is there any difference between "also" and "as well as" If using "as well as", you will need to change "made" into a gerund; if using "also", you would need to change the comma to a full stop, start a new sentence and add in "he" before "made", or express it "and also made..."
6. The clients would like the invoices____ directly to their offices. (faxed)
7. The mayor wants the meeting ___ immediately. (arranged)

ricky: 6,7 are very similar and their answers are "faxed" & "arranged" respectively, please explain me why??

comma splices

User_gary — Sun, 27 May 2007 06:45:15 GMT

But we do each get a Christmas hamper, full of adverbs, prepositions, gerunds, and comma splices.

(Though I'm sorry to say there was a dangling modifier in mine, last year. Office Services please note.)

Please explain the highlighted group of words or rephrase the sentences. [I have alreadly seen meanings from dictionaries for individual word but of no use to understand the sentence as a whole).]

Please you explain.

Re: Are moderators getting salarly?

MrPedantic — Sun, 20 May 2007 22:48:52 GMT

User_gary wrote:
Are moderators getting salary/commission or any income for their hardwork/services?

No money, no. But we do each get a Christmas hamper, full of adverbs, prepositions, gerunds, and comma splices.

(Though I'm sorry to say there was a dangling modifier in mine, last year. Office Services please note.)

MrP

Re: gerund/infinitive

Marius Hancu — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:11:58 GMT

a) not correct, too truncated
b) so as isn't formal enough (M-W indicates it as "obsolete"), such as may be preferred in exams
c) seems the right one to me, with a comma after kindly.
d) I understand the meaning, but I'd not use it. Just doesn't sound right.

Now then, I've found that b) is the most used at Google, by far, so the two gurus above were right