Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ilovebdt]

One of my co teachers asked me why "nothing" is followed by "to be scared of" instead of "being scared of" in this sentence.

I don't know. Does anyone know?

"Spider", she said, "The people of Earth are afraid of dying and that makes me very sad. Please tell them that they will all die sooner or later but it is nothing ( being scared of / to be scared of )

Ilovebdt

[visviva]

Seems like part of a general pattern... something/nothing/anything seem to take the infinitive pretty consistently.

...We have nothing to be scared of.
...I don't have anything else to talk about.

These forms do occasionally collocate with -ing forms, as well, but with a very different meaning -- methinks these are just shortened forms of "(thing) which is (verb)ing":

...There is nothing going on here.
...Is something making noise? (cf. Do you have something to make noise with?)

The most obvious distinction is the subject. The subject of the infinitive is the subject of the sentence; the subject of the -ing form is the -thing form.

(the same patterns seem to apply to no-one/anyone/someone, incidentally).

[VanIslander]

Teach the grammar form:

There's a lot to be accounted for.

There's not much to be worried about.

and even:

There's a few to be eaten.

It's a little early to be drinking, isn't it?

[ilovebdt]

[out of context]

If you want to make an analogy to Korean, the "to + Verb" form is similar to the future participle ending Verb-��, as in �� �� (work to do) or �θ� �뷡 (a song to sing). Both indicate potential or unstarted action.

You could say something like:
There's a painter painting the house.
There's a painter to paint the house.
The first one indicates a situation (painting the house) that is already in progress: "There's a painter who is painting the house right now."
The second one indicates an action (to paint the house) that has not yet been started or that has the potential to happen in the future: "There's a painter who will paint or who could potentially paint the house."

So to go back to the original question, the translation for "There is nothing to be scared of" would be "There is nothing that one could potentially be scared of."

Another problem with the sentence "There is nothing being scared of" is that the noun + -ing form is a reduced relative clause with "nothing" as the subject. The full relative clause is "There is nothing that is being scared of", which is ungrammatical because there is no object for the preposition "of". If you said "There is nothing being scared of spaghetti", it's unfelicitous, but it's not ungrammatical. It's unfelicitous because we don't use the predicate "scared" for inanimate subjects like "nothing".

Thus, we can say both "There is nothing stopping you" and "There is nothing to stop you": because "nothing" is the subject of the verb "stop" and because inanimate "nothing"s are capable of the action of stopping. The first one is more concrete, and the second one is more abstract, but we don't really notice the difference that much.

This does leave one obvious question: Why the obligatory subject reading in the "-ing" form, but not in the "to + V" form? (Korean participle endings don't have this problem.)

[visviva]

Hmm... would "there is no one being scared of spaghetti" really be any more felicitous? That sentence sure doesn't bring much pleasure to *my* brain's grammar centers.

Anyway, I got a little carried away with my rhyme. The subject isn't really the -thing form; it appears that the subject is the nonexistent relative pronoun which refers to the -thing form. (there's something making noise = there's something which is making noise). But it sounds better the other way.

I think out of context summed up the distinction in meaning quite nicely.

[out of context]

[some waygug-in]

Try an alternative to the grammar analysis, try explaining the meaning and why the second sentence makes no sense.

There's nothing to be scared of. means - (there's no reason to be scared)

There's nothing being scared of. - (grammatically incorrect, but the meaning is also unclear ... because in the second sentence it is not clear who or what is "being scared", Is there an animal under the couch, being scared by you? we don't know.)

[EFLtrainer]

There is nothing.

There is no thing.

There is no thing to be scared of.

Replacement drill:

There is fire.

There is no fire.

There is no fire to be scared of.

[JongnoGuru]

Calling who?

[jacl]

[ilovebdt]