Questions tagged [predicate-frames]
The predicate-frames tag has no usage guidance.
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How can we reduce sentences in which main clause and noun clause have different subjects? [closed]
In this sentence, the subject of main clause and noun clause are different: I want vs you go.
Expanded form: I want that you go there.
Reduced form: I want you to go there.
So my question is, how ...
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Preposition ‘to’ followed by gerund in Steinbeck: “started the little wind to moving among the leaves”
Q.1. This is a sentence by John Steinbeck. I don’t understand the verb construction of the preposition ‘to’ followed by a gerund instead of by an infinitive. What’s the explanation?
Evening of a hot ...
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"Take the initiative to INFINITIVE" vs "Take the initiative of GERUND"
Should I say
Happy I finally took the initiative to bring two bottles.
or
Happy I finally took the initiative of bringing two bottles.
Is there a "universal" rule with the phrase "...
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2
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Why is “learning hard” wrong yet “studying hard” is right?
Why does saying learning hard sound so terribly wrong and unnatural, given that working hard, exercising hard,
listening hard, thinking hard, and even it rains hard sound perfectly natural and get ...
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Classifying the uses of to-infinitive and the -ing form
I'm having some trouble to classify the use of the to-infinitive and the -ing form of the verb in the following sentences:
"This problem has the potential to be really serious."
I took a ...
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Why is it grammatically correct to say “It’s time she went”? [duplicate]
Consider these possibilities:
It is now time for her to leave home.
It is now time for her to be told.
It is now time (that) she left home.
It is now time (that) she were told.
It is now time (that) ...
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The sentence structure containing a relative pronoun indicating the indirect object in the clause
When you want to indicate an indirect object with a relative pronoun, you might change the sentence structure from "verb + IO + DO" to "verb + DO + to IO. But this conversion may be ...
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What's the syntactic explanation in "Mistakes are likely to happen":
I'm confused about this sentence construction:
Mistakes are likely to happen.
I’ve thought of three possible explanations; are any of them
correct?
Where likely is an adjective act...
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To + infinitive vs. To + gerund [duplicate]
In one of the grammar books I study I found a following example:
In my previous job I was confined to doing only one thing.
I'd say that confined to do is the correct way to say it. I always thought ...
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"this drug induces sleeping" or "this drug induces sleep"?
I seem to have heard both structures before, but I don’t understand which it would be.
In other languages the second verb would be in the infinitive, but I have heard things like "Josh hates ...
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Lets and allow change sentences, why?
I have just come across something that I have never thought about before and it occurred to me that this site would be the place to ask.
The dictionary defines ALLOW as: VERB - let (someone) have or ...
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"Pecking of" or "Pecking on"
Good evening, I am in the midst of completing a poem and wrote the following line:
"The Owl halts its pecking of sweet-fruit"
My question is: would it be correct to say "its pecking of ...
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"Ground into" or "Ground to"
I am writing a poem and I would like to convey that something is desecrated into nothing, so to speak, so I decided to go with something in the ilk of: 'twas ground (ground being past tense ...
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Has the verb "to convene" ever been commonly used to mean "to be convenient to"?
Some Romance languages' own cognates for our Latin-derived word convene and convenient can be verbed, like verb phrase to be convenient is used in current English:
Não me convém. (...
user50720
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health experts foresee/predict the novel coronavirus spreading in the U.S
One of the top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans on Tuesday that health experts foresee the novel coronavirus that has killed thousands spreading in the ...
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Has the verb "to import me" ever been commonly used in English the way "to concern me" is in the phrase "It does not concern me"?
In various European languages, most especially in the Romance ones, their
own respective cognates for our Latin-derived word import can be used as
a verb in much the way as the verb concern ...
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Is this tutorial using "to [verb]-ing" the right way? When should I just use "to [verb]"? [duplicate]
That tutorial says
Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is an approach to analyzing datasets to summarize their main characteristics. It is used to understand data, get some context regarding it, ...
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Allow X: What’s the difference between "for the sharing of X" and "to share X"? Do they mean the same thing?
What is the difference between these two:
Presentation events allow for the sharing of knowledge.
Presentation events allow to share knowledge.
Do they share the exact same meaning?
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Omission of "is" in "She thought the study of Latin a waste of time."
In The Elements of Style, the authors give this example:
She thought the study of Latin a waste of time.
I cannot understand why the verb is has been omitted. Should not this sentence be as:
...
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Preposition after 'deluged'
I am aware that the word deluged means two things:
Flooded with water
Overwhelmed
The question I want to ask is its usage in a sentence. Would I say 'deluged with' or 'deluged by' something? In ...
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What is verb tense consistency?
"To his great astonishment and mortification, Sticky saw his parents begin trying less and less to find him, instead devoting their time and energy toward the proper disposal of their newfound riches"
...
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What's the difference between using "of" and using "with" when showing a cause?
What is the sense of a sentence when of and with are variously used to show the cause of something?
He died of cancer.
He was shivering with cold.
Why isn’t it like this, or can it be? If it can be, ...
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The "that" elimination problem
The sentence
I marveled that you chuckled that I said "juxtaposition".
suffers from "that" overload. We'd all agree.
It's easy to slim either 'that'. Hence either
I marveled you chuckled that I ...
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"I know him ʙᴇɪɴɢ honest" vs “I know him ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ honest”
The intended original sentence before conversion is:
I know that he is an honest man.
I want to know about these two possible reformulated versions of that sentence that replace the original’s ...
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1
answer
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What is the form of a verb after "achieve" [closed]
Which form is correct, achieve+to+verb or achieve+verb+ing?
I have achieved to play piano well.
I have achieved playing piano well.
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Does the verb “ban” take a gerund or infinitive as its complement? [closed]
Which one below is correct while using the verb ban?
Plastic bottle using was banned by government in the country.
Government banned to use plastic bottle in the country.
Plastic bottle was banned ...
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2
answers
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"It's ok to somebody" sentence structure
I corrected a student as she had made the sentence "it's ok to Martin". I know that this sentence structure is incorrect, she asked why I had made the correction and I am having difficulty explaining ...
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imperative to -ing [duplicate]
Which one is right?
the degree is imperative to consolidating my grasp on concepts and keeping me abreast of upcoming upgrades
the degree is imperative to consolidate my grasp on concepts and keep me ...
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Is expression "It does us no harm." grammatically correct?
I would write it with "to":
"It does to us no harm."
or
"It does no harm to us".
Similar example from https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/do-to
"I’ll never forgive him for ...
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“To agree with someone”: is that prepositional phrase an adverbial or a nominal one?
In this sentence:
I agree with you.
What is the function of the prepositional phrase ”with you” there? Is it an adverb or noun?
If it is an adverb, then what type of adverb is this?
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Verbal regency using “afraid”
I am a Portuguese speaker and in my mother tongue there is something called 'verbal regency', and I think there ought to be something similar in English! Since I am also an English teacher I told one ...
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Does the verb “enable” take a bare-infinitive complement like “let” or a to-infinitive complement like “allow”? [duplicate]
How can you predict which verbs take which type of infinitive as their complements? For example, is the to before open here mandatory, forbidden, or optional?
The Gold Monetization Scheme will ...
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proud to be & proud of being
I have the following two sentences which I would like to confirm the difference in meaning for.
I am proud to be a nurse.
I am proud of being a nurse.
I'm mainly wondering about the difference in ...
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Passive voice sentence [closed]
I saw an idiom in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, be
had,
defined there as:
to be tricked or fooled by someone
And I saw its usage like this
She doesn’t want to buy a used car because she’s ...
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difference in meaning between 2 phrases [duplicate]
I need to know the difference between these two sentences 1)He stopped to playing football 2)He stopped playing football
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Infinitive of Purpose or For [duplicate]
Could you please tell me which usage is correct ?
'I need money to start a business'
'I need money for starting a business'
Actually the first one sounds more natural to me and also I know for is ...
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What are some give-type verbs that cannot undergo straight dative alternation?
The following dative alternations sound off to me:
I want to donate my clothes to charity. --> I want to donate charity my clothes.
He has to submit his paper to his teacher. --> He has to ...
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Why does a pronoun as the predicate of an indirect object (e.g. "I gave her it") sound wrong?
Forgive me if I've used the wrong terms in the title, I did my best given my middle-school grammar lessons and Wikipedia.
"I gave her the book" sounds just fine, but "I gave her it" sounds stilted ...
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"Having you feel that way makes me feel hopeless" or Having you feeling that way makes me feel hopeless"? [duplicate]
Which sentence is grammatically correct and WHY?
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Is "make me to go" grammatical? [closed]
Is this sentence grammatically correct?
You can’t make me to go with you.
Is the word to required there or not, and why?
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I saw her dance/dancing? I saw a flash of lightning strike/striking? I caught her steal/stealing? [duplicate]
Meta: I found a very similar post asking the difference between "I saw him cross" and "I saw him crossing". I have three additional questions on sentences of this form.
In the post I am referring to, ...
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"Replace with" versus "replace by"
I often see "replace with" and "replace by" used interchangeably, but this doesn't sound right to me:
I replaced that component by this one.
I would use "with" in such a sentence. "By" only seems ...
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Why "answer me" but not "answer me the question"?
Why are "answer me" and "answer the question" acceptable but not "answer me the question"? Is it similar to "explain me (something)"?
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"Support on the project" or "support with the project" [closed]
What would be the correct preposition to use?
Thanks for your support on/with the project.
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1
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Differences between Case Frames and Semantic role labeling
I'm learning about some basic linguistics theory and have come across case frame analysis and semantic role labeling as methods of determining agents within sentences, and arguments for verbs.
...
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How does one know when to use a gerund or an infinitive?
As a native speaker of English, the gerund version of this sentence sounds better:
infinitive:
When used together in chains,
extension methods are an unprecedented
tool to produce extremely ...
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When should a verb be followed by a gerund instead of an infinitive?
Some verbs are followed by ing, e.g. I enjoy swimming. We can't say I enjoy to swim. Likewise, some verbs are followed by to, e.g. I decided to make a plan.
Which particular verbs are followed by ...
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