We were discussing the following sentence in the staff room the other day:
What he has to do is finish his work.
What I should do is talk to him.
The question is, why do 'finish' and 'talk' take simple form, rather than a gerund or infinitive form? "What I should do" is the noun clause subject, 'is' is the main verb, so what's "finish his work'? What's "talk to him"?
-Gaga over grammar
Grammar Question on Noun Clauses
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Pink Piggy
- Posts: 28
- Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2003 3:11 pm
- Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Hi!
In the first place, "finish his work" and "talk to him" are elaborations of
the verb "do" and so must mimic its form which is 'infinitive'.
These sentences are nothing but roundabout ways of saying: 'he has to finish his work' and 'I should talk to him'. And they are potentially even roundabouter:
What he has to do is he has to finish his work (Y).
What I should do is I should talk to him(Y).
And these can be re-written as:
He has to do something (X) - and that something is - Y
He should do something (X) - and that something is - Y
and so you have the structure <X = Y>
which is a coordinating sentence with two clause-subjects of equal status.
harzer
In the first place, "finish his work" and "talk to him" are elaborations of
the verb "do" and so must mimic its form which is 'infinitive'.
These sentences are nothing but roundabout ways of saying: 'he has to finish his work' and 'I should talk to him'. And they are potentially even roundabouter:
What he has to do is he has to finish his work (Y).
What I should do is I should talk to him(Y).
And these can be re-written as:
He has to do something (X) - and that something is - Y
He should do something (X) - and that something is - Y
and so you have the structure <X = Y>
which is a coordinating sentence with two clause-subjects of equal status.
harzer
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JuanTwoThree
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
I feel that strictly speaking, 'what I did was to write ..." is not entirely sound for this reason, that there is another construction with a quite different meaning, namely:
"What I did was to have a lasting effect"
But, if pushed, I would have to say I prefer "What I did was write ..."
But quite apart from that, it is indeed difficult to explain the infinitive in this position, rather than the simple past, since the simple past is used in the rewrite:
"I did something (and that something was) I wrote to the manager."
On the other hand, saying "What I was doing was writing ..."
is both logical and uniquely acceptable.
Tricky stuff!
Harzer
"What I did was to have a lasting effect"
But, if pushed, I would have to say I prefer "What I did was write ..."
But quite apart from that, it is indeed difficult to explain the infinitive in this position, rather than the simple past, since the simple past is used in the rewrite:
"I did something (and that something was) I wrote to the manager."
On the other hand, saying "What I was doing was writing ..."
is both logical and uniquely acceptable.
Tricky stuff!
Harzer