Easier way to teach V-ing vs to+infinitive

[Andrew Patterson]

OK, I know you guys are probably sick of my obsession with this subject , but I think I've come up with sth worth looking at this time.

(Frodesen & Eyring) wrote:
"Gerunds are used to describe an "actual, vivid, or fulfilled action" whereas infinitives are better used to describe "potential, hypothetical, or future events."

The reason for choosing between the two doesn't seem to be arbitary and I think it is wholly based on meaning. Frodesen & Eyring go some of the way towards making the choice between v-ing and to+infinitive but they aren't quite there. I'm not sure what "vivid" means here, and future events can take sometimes take V-ing eg "I look forward to meeting you."

Anyway, I've been working on this problem, and think I have come up with a table that now covers every choice between the two forms, and which should be a lot easier than memorising whole lists of verbs under two or three columns. I tried it on a student yesterday and the lesson went quite well.

I used it in conjunction with my Venn diagram and the page also contains the notes to it.

OK, so here is the link:

http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/Notes.html

Do you find it useful and have I put the right things in the table?
What about my assertion that the ideas are mutually exclusive that a verb cannot have meaning from both columns? I'm not sure about that.

[thethinker]

There's some interesting ideas but I don't think it can be applied widely enough to be useful. For example "I like going swimming" doesn't actually mean that I go swimming, just that I like it (we could say "I like going swimming but I never get the chance"). Whereas "I like to go swimming" would normally go with some kind of time adverbial and suggests that I actually do. On your table, though, -ing refers to "known", and infinitive to "hypothetical" whereas the opposite is true.

Another verb that doesn't seem to fit into the table comfortably is "try".

[Andrew Patterson]

Thanks for replying, Thinker, I thought this was going to get zero replies. I think the others have had enough of this subject but this time I think I've got some more specific ideas than I had before. I'm afraid I don't agree with all your criticisms, however.

The Thinker wrote:

There's some interesting ideas...

Thank you

...but I don't think it can be applied widely enough to be useful.

:?I've already found it useful and have used it in class. You have chosen to add V-ing after the infinitive which somewhat complicates things but my analysis refers to the verb immediately after the verb in question.

For example "I like going swimming" doesn't actually mean that I go swimming, just that I like it (we could say "I like going swimming but I never get the chance").

On the contrary, it does refer to the activity itself.

Whereas "I like to go swimming" would normally go with some kind of time adverbial and suggests that I actually do.

It implies that I have a routine and it implies purpose. This routine is breakable.
A:Can you come Wednesday?
B:Well I like to go swimming on Wednesday, but as it's a special occasion...

On your table, though, -ing refers to "known", and infinitive to "hypothetical" whereas the opposite is true.

No, it isn't.

Another verb that doesn't seem to fit into the table comfortably is "try"

V-ing: the activity itself, to+infinitive: the purpose, sounds OK to me.

[thethinker]

OK I'll choose a single verb to use with "like" to illustrate what I'm trying to say.

I like watching TV.

This sentence doesn't actually mean I drink coffee. You could say "I like watching TV but my wife doesn't let me." I'd say this therefore means the sentence is hypothetical, or at least more hypothetical than...

I like to watch TV.

We use the infinitive to talk about things we actually do, and often how frequently we do them. It's certainly less hypothetical than the example with the -ing form. That's why I'd say your table is back-to-front if you apply it here.

If the table is referring to whether the liking is hypothetical or known, then I'd say neither is hypothetical - it's clear in both what the speaker likes.

With "try", I just think the two meanings are extremely disparate. I normally explain this to students something along the lines of:

Try to do sth = I think it's a good idea, I recommend it
Try doing sth = see if it works, do it as an experiment

I know my "definitions" are also a bit loose, but I really don't see how the distinction in your table would help ss make the distinction.

[Andrew Patterson]

The Thinker Wrote:

OK I'll choose a single verb to use with "like" to illustrate what I'm trying to say.

I like watching TV.

This sentence doesn't actually mean I drink coffee.

No, it means you enjoy watching TV.

You could say "I like watching TV but my wife doesn't let me." I'd say this therefore means the sentence is hypothetical, or at least more hypothetical than...

I like to watch TV.

V-ing refers to the action itself, to+infinitive refers to the habit. You could qualify the second example by saying, "I would like to watch TV but... ."

We use the infinitive to talk about things we actually do, and often how frequently we do them.

When used with a time phrase, to+infinitive is certainly used to talk about how often we do things when the main verb is in the simple aspect, the simple aspect is retained which is used to talk about how often sth is done. V-ing after a verb always carries with it the idea of the continuous aspect.

It's certainly less hypothetical than the example with the -ing form. That's why I'd say your table is back-to-front if you apply it here.

You can stop sth that you are actually doing and will still have done it. If you haven't yet performed an action that you would like to do, you haven't done it.

If the table is referring to whether the liking is hypothetical or known, then I'd say neither is hypothetical - it's clear in both what the speaker likes.

We need "would like" to make it truely hypothetical. Then it must be followed by to+infinitive.

With "try", I just think the two meanings are extremely disparate.

That makes explaination far easier. Subtlty is much harder to explain.

I normally explain this to students something along the lines of:

Try to do sth = I think it's a good idea, I recommend it
Try doing sth = see if it works, do it as an experiment

And you are 100% right here. The first carries a strong sense of purpose, the second doesn't because you are just trying it out.

I know my "definitions" are also a bit loose, but I really don't see how the distinction in your table would help ss make the distinction.

I can only reply that students have told me that they find my approach more useful, simpler and easier to understand than learning arbitary lists.

[JuanTwoThree]

Students find that saying that "to" refers forward in time and refers to purposefulness and the perhaps unknown, whereas -ing refers backwards in time and refers to the experienced and known, covers 90% of this question. There are no backward looking verbs that take "to". Those forward looking verbs that do take -ing are more namby-pamby than the "to"'s. Look at "fancy, wouldn't mind, consider, suggest, recommend, avoid etc ". They lack something (purpose IMO) that "hope, plan, expect, dare, desire, etc" have in spades. It's not very satisfactory to say that verbs which take "to" are more butch than the "ing"'s but it's true.

This leaves aside prepositional "to" BTW.

The time "explanation" helps with "stop, remember, forget, prefer etc". It goes a long way to sorting out "try" .

"Like, love & hate" are elusive and it might be a convenient fiction to lump them with "start,begin and continue" and say that you can use either most of the time. And isn't this a BrE/AmE thing anyway? We went over this a while back, didn't we?

[Andrew Patterson]

Juan wrote:

Students find that saying that "to" refers forward in time and refers to purposefulness and the perhaps unknown, whereas -ing refers backwards in time and refers to the experienced and known, covers 90% of this question. There are no backward looking verbs that take "to". Those forward looking verbs that do take -ing are more namby-pamby than the "to"'s. Look at "fancy, wouldn't mind, consider, suggest, recommend, avoid etc ". They lack something (purpose IMO) that "hope, plan, expect, dare, desire, etc" have in spades. It's not very satisfactory to say that verbs which take "to" are more butch than the "ing"'s but it's true.

This leaves aside prepositional "to" BTW.

I think I can see where you are coming from. If I paraphrase and change it slightly, could you confirm that this boils down to:

to+infinitive indicates that the idea expressed in the infinitive is expressed AFTER the action of the initial verb. (This is true even if the initial verb is in the past tense.)

V-ing indicates that the idea expressed by V-ing occurs concurrently with the initial verb but where the idea expressed by the initial or following verb verb is future (as in the case of the initial verb "look forward to" or the following verb "going"), it can also refer to the future.

I can't think of any verbs that explicitly refer to the past, Juan.

The time "explanation" helps with "stop, remember, forget, prefer etc". It goes a long way to sorting out "try" .

"Like, love & hate" are elusive and it might be a convenient fiction to lump them with "start,begin and continue" and say that you can use either most of the time. And isn't this a BrE/AmE thing anyway? We went over this a while back, didn't we?

Alternatively, you could look at the link where I wrote my table and see if that describes the other verbs. I'm beginning to think that I should refer to future in some way in the table, but it is possible that other bits can be lumped together. Could you look at my table, Juan?
http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/Notes.html

[JuanTwoThree]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that "to" always refers to actions subsequent to the verb before the "to".

But -ing is harder, it usually refers to actions experienced before (in time) the verb before (in the sentence) : I mean that you have to have gone to the North Pole to say "I enjoy/hate/ loathe/ detest/ love/don't mind/remember/forget /deny/admit (to) /etc going to the North Pole. That's why "I prefer going to the North Pole" can only be said by someone who has been there whereas "I prefer to go to the North Pole" can be said by someone who has not.

It's the forward in time looking verbs that take-ing (suggest/recommend/avoid/fancy/wouldn't mind etc) that trip up students and an explanation of why these verbs are not followed by "to" would get us somewhere. You can either treat them as exceptions to the (relative) past and future idea or look for something better. Personally I think that they lack the strength of purpose expressed by verbs that take "to". But as I say it's hard to put into words.

Don't let "look forward to" in here. It's a different kind of "to" and has nothing to do with all of this.

I like all your ideas Andrew and I think they explain a lot, but I question if they're what an FCE student needs. I can explain better with time that "I regret not going to Oxford" means that I didn't go and looking back now I'm sorry , but when I say "I regret to tell you...... " at this point you don't know for sure what you're about to hear. Certainly stop/remember/forget are easy to explain in terms of time. As is the difference between "go on talking" and "go on to talk".

What about "start/begin/continue" which are followed by either to or ing?

[JuanTwoThree]

We need someone called "Patrick Duffley". Bung him in Google Scholar

http://scholar.google.com/

and you'll see what I mean. And this covers a lot of our ground:

http://www.fl.ulaval.ca/lli/liens%20pro ... proofs.pdf

[Andrew Patterson]

This guy is good, Juan. And he writes clearly too except for his contrast with Lanacker and Stowell's approach on p.3-4. I am not clear whether Duffley regards these approaches as contradictory or not. I think they are both valid.

Juan, I fully agree that the material that I've got is not suitible for FCE students. In fact, it is a work in progress, and I'd like to simplify it to a core set choices. Purpose is a definite criterion, so is the idea of temporality, though I'm blowed if I know the right way to put that for students. I think constancy vs change too.

I have to look at criteria that
1. can sometimes define the difference and
2. always define the difference.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that the difference an be entirely acounted for in terms of tense, aspect, mood/modality, semantics and aktionsart.

Now I'm going to read the rest of the article. Where did you find it?

[JuanTwoThree]

I kept seeing him cited when I was trying Google Scholar for Infinitive, Gerund, Purpose etc.

The Philosopher's stone of all this would be to tie up the gerund with the continuous (I am thinking/I love thinking).

[Andrew Patterson]

Juan wrote:

The Philosopher's stone of all this would be to tie up the gerund with the continuous (I am thinking/I love thinking).

This is exactly what I had in mind when I was talking about temporality. Note that the simple is also used for routines, though to+inf can be used in any tense. It is also what I had in mind in the 9th (last) criterion in my table. This (and a lot of my table) is a problem more of getting the wording right. If you can think of better wording, please let me know.

I'm a little worried by Duffley's assertion that, "the distribution of meaning is shown to be more complex than that of a simple binary opposition."

I'm trying to figure out whether this means that any attempt to produce a table is fruitless. Then again, he goes on to say that the complexity of to+infinitive is the result of it being made of two parts "to"+the bare infinitive. Which suggests that provided the meanings of these two forms together stay within a bound of meaning binary opposition is still viable. BTW, it may also be that the analysis of to+infinitive is also oversimplified. There is no reason to suppose that the two words together will be the sum of their individual meanings and there is scope for idiomaticity. I note that the "to" is often not even considered to be a preposition and is known as the "infinitive marker." I suspect it is less like a preposition than other prepositions in this context. This in and of itself would not necessarily discount binary opposition.

Juan wrote:

Yes, I'm pretty sure that "to" always refers to actions subsequent to the verb before the "to".

But -ing is harder, it usually refers to actions experienced before (in time) the verb before (in the sentence) : I mean that you have to have gone to the North Pole to say "I enjoy/hate/ loathe/ detest/ love/don't mind/remember/forget /deny/admit (to) /etc going to the North Pole. That's why "I prefer going to the North Pole" can only be said by someone who has been there whereas "I prefer to go to the North Pole" can be said by someone who has not.

I take back what I said about V-ing not referring to the past. You have clearly shown that it can.

[JuanTwoThree]

I think one needs to think of "to" as preposition as being only the "to" followed by -ing (admit to/prefer ----ing to ------ing)/object to/look forward to) whereas this infinitive "to" probably isn't a preposition at all. BTW I notice that prep "to" can look forward in time (as in "look forward to") and back (admit/confess to).

Common sense supposes that marker "to" has derived from prep "to" but what has it become?

English has stripped itself down to the bare essentials so much that we have a pretty good idea about what it means when we have verb+verb with no marker " to " intervening, which is the ultimate paring-down (even if we bicker about it we know we're in the world of semi-auxiliarity, what I half jokingly called "lack of to- support").

So one question is: Does marker "to" have meaning? Is it a morpheme? Yes, it indicates resolution and purpose with a strong dose of a time sequence. But it's a beggar to nail down.

On another tack, I'm not sure that verb + ing has much to do the current situation. You don't say "I enjoy talking to you" too soon, it's more to do with "I've been talking to you for a while and so I conclude "I enjoy talking to you" " than "I am talking to you". That's not very clear, is it? What I mean is that it's the water that's gone under the bridge that makes me say it. You can't say "I hate living in Spain" after ten seconds here but I can say "I hate going to the opera" and I haven't been for years. So your wording might concentrate on a starker contrast between relative past (experience to date) and future (purpose and intention) than on what is taking place presently (where you say "actual" and "in progress"). But it needs to take into account those less than purposeful verbs that do look forward in time (consider fancy etc) which are a major stumbling block to any purely time-line explanation.

[Andrew Patterson]

I think one needs to think of "to" as preposition as being only the "to" followed by -ing (admit to/prefer ----ing to ------ing)/object to/look forward to) whereas this infinitive "to" probably isn't a preposition at all. BTW I notice that prep "to" can look forward in time (as in "look forward to") and back (admit/confess to).

Good point, echoed in the onestopenglish discusion on the same topic.

Common sense supposes that marker "to" has derived from prep "to" but what has it become?

English has stripped itself down to the bare essentials so much that we have a pretty good idea about what it means when we have verb+verb with no marker " to " intervening, which is the ultimate paring-down (even if we bicker about it we know we're in the world of semi-auxiliarity, what I half jokingly called "lack of to- support").

So one question is: Does marker "to" have meaning? Is it a morpheme? Yes, it indicates resolution and purpose with a strong dose of a time sequence. But it's a beggar to nail down.

The problem, it seems to me is that everyone is trying to define "to" as infinitive marker and saying that it complicates the meaning of "to"+infinitive in a way that doesn't happen with V-ing.

I think that this analysis may be missing the point that purpose is addressed because it CAN be addressed. I am glad that you brought up verb-verb combinations (ie primary and modal auxiliaries) because the point here is that the overlay of meaning here is so direct that purpose is bypassed and it is bypassed because the meaning of the verb involved CANNOT address purpose. It is "non-purposeful". This situation occurs in the "transitive modals", too.

This then also impinges on the meaning of V-ing because there purpose IS addressed but is somewhat lacking. It is unpurposeful. If in doubt the difference is like the difference my use of "non-purposeful" and "unpurposeful" is the same as the difference between between "amoral" and "immoral".

On another tack, I'm not sure that verb + ing has much to do the current situation. You don't say "I enjoy talking to you" too soon, it's more to do with "I've been talking to you for a while and so I conclude "I enjoy talking to you" " than "I am talking to you". That's not very clear, is it? What I mean is that it's the water that's gone under the bridge that makes me say it. You can't say "I hate living in Spain" after ten seconds here but I can say "I hate going to the opera" and I haven't been for years. So your wording might concentrate on a starker contrast between relative past (experience to date) and future (purpose and intention) than on what is taking place presently (where you say "actual" and "in progress"). But it needs to take into account those less than purposeful verbs that do look forward in time (consider fancy etc) which are a major stumbling block to any purely time-line explanation.

It certainly is a stumbling block. I don't think it is possible to define tense here, aspect perhaps, but not tense. We can of course have future aspect.

Another problem is that I'm not sure whether I should be defining the core or range of meaning (in which case I could include "either or" definitions. As a matter of interest, any ideas for change of wording?

[JuanTwoThree]

Here's a thought. Is it worth trying to pin down the wide variety of situations when the ing form is used? We've all been so brainwashed into thinking that European infinitives are "To ............." in English that students are prone to ask "When should I use ing instead of the infinitive?" Well, the answer is "Pretty much all the time".

The question should be "When shouldn't I use the ing form?". It's more straightforward to treat ing as the default answer and highlight when " to" is used. I'll have a go:

"to" is used between resolute purposeful verbs and verbs describing actions or states that are subsequent in time to the first verb. If the first verb is not resolute or purposeful enough even though the action is subsequent (eg fancy/wouldn't mind) then -ing is still used. ing is always used if the second verb is temporally previous to the first verb. (more or less)

It's depressing though, because you look at some of the dreaded lists and notice say " tolerate" or "risk" . Tolerate is quite purposeful enough but is that ing that comes after really "previous" enough to shoe horn this into such a rule? Risk seems sometimes decisive, sometimes fatalistic.

Or "allow" "permit" etc. What's the difference between "We don't allow smoking" and "We don't allow visitors to smoke"? I think there is something to choose between the default blanket
ing (1 smoking 2 not allow) and a specific imposition in a particular case ( 1 visitor 2 not smoke)

And "like" won't go away, although there is said to be something more decided about the "like to": "I like to arrive at the airport in plenty of time (because I'm a meticulous person)" vs "I like arriving at the airport in plenty of time (because I can go round the shops ha ha )"
Though I'm not sure this isn't a BrE nicety that anyway exists more in coursebooks than in reality. Swap the sentences around a bit and see if you suddenly get a purposeful shopper. Probably not.