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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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 Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:02 pm Post subject: Funny Grammar Question |
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I don't think this sentence is right. Can I verify with you guys?
The sentence goes like this:
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| The second thing he challenged her to do was lifting the gray cat. |
I would have thought it should be:
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The second thing he challenged her to do was to lift the gray cat. |
But I am unsure if the first example is grammatically incorrect or if it just sounds odd.
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MA-TESL/AL grad
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Location: United States
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| The progressive is being over-used where it is statistically more probable that the infinitive form should be used. Sometimes a sentence can seem "wrong" but not be explicitly forbidden given prescriptive grammatically rules. If you are a native speaker than you can probably trust your instincts. |
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MA-TESL/AL grad
Joined: 27 Oct 2011
Location: United States
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| There are such programs but I personally found I learned a lot more because of the people I met in such programs such as the numerous Fullbright scholars who attended my program. If you are making bank in Korea, like I once did, then it may make more sense to study online. |
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smee18
Joined: 24 Mar 2009
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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The mixing of the present continuous (lifting) and past (challenged) tenses seems intrinsically problematic to me, rather than merely being a matter of linguistic convention. Though, I'm not enough of a grammar nerd to be able to substantiate what I feel.  |
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akcrono
Joined: 11 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Funny Grammar Question |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
I don't think this sentence is right. Can I verify with you guys?
The sentence goes like this:
| Quote: |
| The second thing he challenged her to do was lifting the gray cat. |
I would have thought it should be:
| Quote: |
The second thing he challenged her to do was to lift the gray cat. |
But I am unsure if the first example is grammatically incorrect or if it just sounds odd.
|
Pretty sure the first example is not correct. If we strip out some of the words, we're left with a more simple sentence:
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| he challenged her to lifting the cat. |
It should read:
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| he challenged her to lift the cat. |
This is fine, because only 1 verb is conjugated and there is only 1 action being done in the sentence. There are some examples which might explain why you wouldn't dismiss the original sentence as wrong right off the bat:
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| The second thing the teacher challenged his kindergardeners to was a drinking contest. |
In this example, drinking is an adjective, not a verb, since it describes the contest. |
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DIsbell
Joined: 15 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:08 am Post subject: |
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I don't think that "lifting" is used as a verb in the progressive aspect but rather as a gerund. If you're going to simplify the sentence, it would read: "The thing was lifting." This is a similar to a sentence like "His favorite thing to do was playing piano." In present tense, something like "The third event is swimming 3 miles."
The "to lift" (infinitive) sentence does sound better to the ears; it might be more common.
Neither appear to be "wrong." |
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akcrono
Joined: 11 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:16 am Post subject: |
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| DIsbell wrote: |
I don't think that "lifting" is used as a verb in the progressive aspect but rather as a gerund. If you're going to simplify the sentence, it would read: "The thing was lifting." This is a similar to a sentence like "His favorite thing to do was playing piano." In present tense, something like "The third event is swimming 3 miles."
The "to lift" (infinitive) sentence does sound better to the ears; it might be more common.
Neither appear to be "wrong." |
I disagree, because in your examples, you only have 1 verb, "was lifting", while the OP's sentence had "challenged" as the verb. The reset of the sentence was describing the challenge and should be in the infinitive.
Compare:
"He challenged her to swimming 3 miles."
"He challenged her to swim 3 miles."
I feel like the only reason "swimming" isn't dismissed immediately, is because it is sometimes used as an adjective, e.g. swimming club. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 6:25 am Post subject: |
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| DIsbell wrote: |
I don't think that "lifting" is used as a verb in the progressive aspect but rather as a gerund. If you're going to simplify the sentence, it would read: "The thing was lifting." This is a similar to a sentence like "His favorite thing to do was playing piano." In present tense, something like "The third event is swimming 3 miles."
The "to lift" (infinitive) sentence does sound better to the ears; it might be more common.
Neither appear to be "wrong." |
It's one of those things where it depends on the verb + gerund used.
EX:
The second thing he challenged her to do was lifting the gray cat.
compare;
The second thing he challenged her to do was running the race.
(sounds OK to my ear)
Perhaps I'm wrong, where's Thuida or Cosmic Hum when you need them?
I suppose that lifting the cat is not something that would take much time,
perhaps a few seconds.
Running a race would take considerable more time, so the gerund sounds
more appropriate. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 7:35 am Post subject: Re: Funny Grammar Question |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
I don't think this sentence is right. Can I verify with you guys?
The sentence goes like this:
| Quote: |
| The second thing he challenged her to do was lifting the gray cat. |
I would have thought it should be:
| Quote: |
The second thing he challenged her to do was to lift the gray cat. |
But I am unsure if the first example is grammatically incorrect or if it just sounds odd.
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Some very good information being shared here.
The construction of that sentence is rather involved.
But for a simple answer as to why the second sentence is 'better' (not sure right or wrong is appropriate here.)
...the rule of parallelism.
Some grammarians tend to suggest that the rule of parallelism is best followed...some go as far as to say it is prescribed.
If you are one of those people, then the most formal answer would be.
The second thing he challenged her to do was to lift the gray cat.
For no better reason then to balance the rule of parallelism...merely a formality.
There are more formal lexical explanations that have to with constructions that follow verbs such as 'challenge'.
He challenged her to vs. He challenged her to do
Another point (which has already been made, as well) is the contruction of 'was lifting'.
Some people would read lifting as a gerund...others as verbal -as it appears to be because it is following a 'be' verb.
Strictly speaking...it is in gerund form...even though it is following the 'be' verb...which causes no confusion in the understanding...only in the grammar.
But again...not sure any more than the rule of parallelism is required to explain to your student why the second is more formal and tends to sound better.
Hope this is useful. |
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brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 3:54 pm Post subject: Re: Funny Grammar Question |
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Interesting discussion going on here. Now I feel better, cuz I don't feel so stupid for asking the question... hehe.  |
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DIsbell
Joined: 15 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| akcrono wrote: |
I disagree, because in your examples, you only have 1 verb, "was lifting", while the OP's sentence had "challenged" as the verb. The reset of the sentence was describing the challenge and should be in the infinitive.
Compare:
"He challenged her to swimming 3 miles."
"He challenged her to swim 3 miles."
I feel like the only reason "swimming" isn't dismissed immediately, is because it is sometimes used as an adjective, e.g. swimming club. |
The verb "challenged" is part of a subordinate relative clause: "(that) he challenged her to do." The verb in the OPs sentences is "was."
This is different from your examples, which at a glace appear to be noun clauses ("to swim..."/"to swimming") functioning as indirect objects (I need to think about it a bit more). In your examples, the infinitive is more appropriate. |
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Birder
Joined: 21 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| They're both fine. Lifting here is a gerund starting off a noun phrase. To make it a little clearer, "The seccond thing he challenged her to do was [the act/task of] lifting the gray cat. "was lifting" is not past progressive. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:36 am Post subject: |
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| Birder wrote: |
| They're both fine. Lifting here is a gerund starting off a noun phrase. To make it a little clearer, "The seccond thing he challenged her to do was [the act/task of] lifting the gray cat. "was lifting" is not past progressive. |
Quite right.
These are good ways to look at it, too.
Separating the subordinate(dependent) clause is a good approach to understanding the basic independent clause.
From the sentence level...if we make it a bit simpler.
The second thing (that he challenged her to do) was (lifting the grey cat.)
Again...because the infinitive immediately precedes the verb...then using parallelism...to lift would be more formal.
However, if we separate the gerund phrase from the verb...it becomes clearer that �was lifting� is not in the past progressive.
(Lifting the grey cat) was the second thing (that he challenged her to do.)
Written like this, most people can see that 'lifting' is indeed working as a gerund(noun) and not part of the main verb 'was'.
Good call DIsbell and Birder. |
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justpale
Joined: 29 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 7:07 pm Post subject: Re: Funny Grammar Question |
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| brento1138 wrote: |
I don't think this sentence is right. Can I verify with you guys?
The sentence goes like this:
| Quote: |
| The second thing he challenged her to do was lifting the gray cat. |
I would have thought it should be:
| Quote: |
The second thing he challenged her to do was to lift the gray cat. |
But I am unsure if the first example is grammatically incorrect or if it just sounds odd.
|
While the first sentence may not be wrong, I prefer the second sentence for clarity's sake. It is grammatically correct and less ambiguous than the first sentence.
The first sentence could be read as "[NP] was lifting the gray cat." In other words, the gray cat was being lifted by the challenge. Using the infinitive makes it clear that the challenge was to lift the cat, not that the lifting of the cat was an effect of the challenge. |
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Birder
Joined: 21 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:38 am Post subject: |
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| While I do get the basic grammatical premise behind this claim of ambiguity (and will allow that other verbs and nouns might make it actually ambiguous), I really can't see how any native speaker would think that the gray cat was being lifted by the challenge, since that would be a logical absurdity. |
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