to (verb) vs. for (verb +ing)

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:48 pm

This question came up in class today. Given two sentences like, "He went to the laundromat to wash his clothes." and "He went to the laundromat for washing his clothes." it is clear to me that the first sentence is correct and the second is not. The part where I had trouble, was explaining why (other than saying, "That's just the way it is."

So I thought I'd post here.

Now I know that "He went to the laundromat to wash his clothes" has an infinitive of purpose, and could also be expressed as "He went to the laundromat in order to wash his clothes." When I tried to explain it I had the distinct feeling I was digging a hole for myself so I stopped and said I'd check on it. The problem came when I was thinking of examples, like, "He used a pencil sharpener to sharpen the pencil." and "He used the pencil sharpener for sharpening pencils." which didn't sound so good, but wasn't as bad as the initial example. Ideas?

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 12:51 am

Hey Lorikeet , could you tell me one thing?

Using your two sentences:

(1) He went to the laundromat to wash his clothes.
(2) He went to the laundromat for washing his clothes.

Why is sentence(2) wrong?

Using FOR, it wouldn't demand a noun (or a verb transformed into a noun)? Or is it pragmatical (no native in any normal situation would use it like 'it's I'?)

Please consider that I am a foreigner in a non-English environment, thus I don't have authority on pragmatical use of the language.

José

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:52 am

That's exactly my question. It "sounds" wrong to me as a native speaker, but I don't have a rule why. Perhaps someone can enlighten us

dduck · Post by **dduck** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:21 am

I'm curious, are the students asking, Spanish speakers? I ask because of the phrase "for washing his clothes". In Spanish you'd say "para lavar la ropa". Some students might incorrectly translate "para" into "for", whereas it should be "in order to".

I don't have any magic answer but here's how I'd answer it in class:

"He went to the laundromat..."

So far so good. Our intention is to describe why he went, so we use some lexical items like "in order to", "so that", "because", "to + verb"...

The phrase "for washing his clothes", still is comprehensible but sounds awful, in English - it may sound perfectly okay in other languages, like Spanish, but it's not a standard lexical unit in English. Try using some of the standard lexical units to complete the sentence.

Or something like that.

Iain

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 4:07 pm

I know I can always fall back on the "native speaker intuition" thing (and yes, I do that!

). I was just wondering if there was a more elegant way. I still find it interesting that if I hear, "The pencil sharpener is used for sharpening pencils." or "The pencil sharpener is used to sharpen pencils." I can accept both of them. Isn't English fun!

Alexanndra · Post by **Alexanndra** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 3:00 pm

Good question, Lorikeet! I hope someone can come up with a difinitive answer!

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 3:21 pm

Aw, shucks, Alexanndra. I was sure you were going to have it!

szwagier · Post by **szwagier** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 1:04 pm

Take a look at these:

1.He/she may suggest that you go to the doctor for further help.

2.You wake up, get out of bed, go to the bathroom for a wash, look in

3.or theoretically, that people go to the cinema for the storytelling

4.Sinn Fein does not go to the IRA for permission, and

5.now been agreed, but it still has to go to the republics for signing, and it

As we can see from these examples "go to X for Y" is perfectly acceptable, where Y is a noun phrase, so the question then becomes "how is washing his clothes different from (/to/than) these noun phrases?"

It evidently is a noun phrase of sorts because we can say

"Washing his clothes is something he does very infrequently"

and then again it's not because we can't say

*"The washing his clothes is something he does very infrequently"

It's not an explanation - yet - but I think that's where you would want to focus...

dduck · Post by **dduck** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 1:27 pm

szwagier wrote:... we can't say

*"The washing his clothes is something he does very infrequently"

But, we can say

The washing of his clothes is something he does very infrequently.

As far as I'm concerned Gerunds are still the enemy.
Iain

Alexanndra · Post by **Alexanndra** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 4:26 pm

Lorikeet,

The day I can answer things that you can't is still far away!!!

P.S. Sorry I didn't make it to sit in on your class. My trips home are always so packed with activity!

szwagier · Post by **szwagier** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 4:47 pm

dduck wrote:
szwagier wrote:... we can't say

*"The washing his clothes is something he does very infrequently"
But, we can say

The washing of his clothes is something he does very infrequently.

As far as I'm concerned Gerunds are still the enemy.
Iain

You can indeed, but then we're switching from noun phrase to noun phrase + complement.

What does that imply? I haven't the faintest idea, but it must be important because it defines the difference between a grammatical and an ungrammatical utterance. At least in this case (I'm learning - see how careful I'm being?

)

Gerunds are indeed evil things.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 1:26 am

I'm pretty well stumped too, but I did come up with this thought:

You can say, "He went to the library for reading materials." Now, what seems clear to me is that 'reading' in this sentence seems to be a present participle limiting 'materials'. In other words, an adjective. In Lorikeet's sentence:

He went to the laundromat for washing his clothes.

...the -ing form, 'washing', seems to be a different kind of word. It looks like a verb to me, describing an action.

OK, somebody jump in here and help me out. I'm getting the same feeling as Lorikeet did in class...(I'm digging myself into a hole).

But I don't think we should be looking for a "rule" here. Seems more like it should be an explanation having to do with the speaker's intended meaning.

Larry Latham

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 7:25 am

More...

I had a look at the COBUILD website and did a concordance search on their sampler. Here's several lines of the result:

something I hadn't done for years. I went for a run. I didn't run as far as I
said a soap was `deplorable", so we went for that." Sure enough, Wavy Davy
opening line, Luke and his colleagues went for *beep* at Strabismus. They
was again all right. [p] My guest went for the table d'hote side of the
Waqar finished with 4 wickets but went for more than five an over, as did
would deal with it if every time they went for a job they were asked could they
Claudio Chiappucci and Rolf Sorensen went for the long approach, riding for
Lognman and Alec Poole best placed-went for the narrowest of gaps. [p] Nigel
go for flamboyance. [p] That's why we went for Ian Wright explains PR man Simon
Prunia. [p] It wasn't a cross, I went for goal joked Pusceddu Remember, I
told Fritz to cover the phone while I went for a walk. The air was cold and
when we'd finished in Crossmaglen. He went for the Special Air Service
when competition had ended, they went for a walk together in the
systematic approach, other critiques went for specific targets in the
the logistics of the moment and went for it. FISA called the risk `
was Burned Man. His people came and went for days, stowing wagonloads of his
of people. So I grabbed a beer and went for a walk in the garden. Marisa was
month, a pair of John Lennon specs went for £ 3,000, although you can
which hit the post, then James, and went for a corner. And in the last minute
correspondent for The Times, I went for a drive along the shores of
circle for the first 15 overs, they went for their strokes, scoring at eight
with themselves will be those who went for North America. The four new
[p] Robert Rodriguez, likewise, went for the money after winning a jury
out of the bag of dog biscuits and went for Sean Connery's niece Leone, who
in the third set, I concentrated, went for every shot and gave it all I had
there was any. He took a pine twig, went for a walk and suddenly it started
signing [p] Porterfield added: `Paul went for a ball and Dean Saunders was
their future. After lunch, the earl went for a walk. [p] Then came the
like that [p] But Small insisted: `I went for the ball. These things happen in

It looks like if you have a verb that = went, followed by "for", it seems always to be followed by a noun. In the case of Lorikeet's original problem sentence: "He went to the laundromat for washing his clothes." it seems (if we remove 'to the laundromat') that washing won't work here even though it has the faint sound of correctness because the form is capable of being used as a gerund, but in this case is not.

Is this making sense?

I think szwagier went to the same place for his examples and if you examine them again, they show the same thing. In his last example, the signing is a gerund. Same in his #3 example. But then he asks, "How is 'washing his clothes' different from other noun phrases?" The answer, I think, is that 'washing his clothes' isn't a noun phrase, because the head word isn't a noun.

Larry Latham

dduck · Post by **dduck** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 10:44 am

szwagier wrote:You can indeed, but then we're switching from noun phrase to noun phrase + complement.

According to X-bar theory:

www.wikipedia.com wrote:XP --> (specifier), X-bar An X Phrase consists of an optional specifier and an X-bar, in either order.
X-bar --> X-bar, (adjunct) An X-bar may consist of an X-bar and an adjunct, in either order.
X-bar --> X, (complement...) An X-bar consists of an X and any number of complements, in either order.

We can take from that: a Noun Phrase is a specifier and an X-bar. An X-bar is a head word and any number of complements. Using substitution, a NP is a specifier, head word and any number of complements. Thus a NP plus complement is a NP.

Iain

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 6:33 pm

You're getting into an area here, Iain, where I feel my knowledge is shaky (to say the least), but if I understand correctly, if an X-bar is to become an N-bar, then the X has to be a noun.

In Lorikeet's original problem sentence, "He went...for washing his clothes.", I don't think this particular washing is a noun. Am I off-base here?

Larry Latham